When the Year Begins with Loss
The first two months of this year have felt heavy.
More loss.
More hardship.
More difficult news than I expected so early on.
I won’t name names. I don’t need to. Many of us have felt it — that sense that life can shift in an instant. That reminder that nothing is promised. It has left me emotionally drained. Sad. Reflective.
Living Against the Clock
Living with SMA has always shaped how I see time. From a young age, I have lived with the quiet awareness that I don’t know how much of it I have. That awareness has often felt like a ticking clock in the background of my life.
I’ve lived with urgency.
I’ve felt like I need to fit everything in.
Experience everything.
Achieve everything.
Love deeply.
Make impact.
In many ways, that urgency has been my fuel. It’s pushed me to speak. To write. To build. To create change. To refuse to sit on the sidelines of my own life.
But recently, something has shifted. I’m tired of racing.
When Urgency Isn’t Enough
I still believe in living fully. I still believe in bravery and boldness and squeezing the juice out of every opportunity. But I’m starting to question whether living “against the clock” is the only way to live with purpose.
What if purpose isn’t just urgency?
What if it’s perspective?
The Time We Waste
This past month, I’ve realised how much time we waste emotionally.
We don’t say “I love you” when we feel it.
We hold back apologies.
We silence gratitude.
We swallow our emotions because they feel inconvenient.
We assume there will be time.
And practically, I catch myself thinking: why do we save everything for a rainy day if we don’t even know if the rainy day will come?
But we also can’t live recklessly.
We need wisdom.
We need balance.
Finding Peace in Small Moments
In this darker season, I’ve struggled to feel motivational. It’s hard to be the light when you feel surrounded by shadow.
But maybe that’s exactly why I must keep showing up.
This month, I’ve found peace in small things:
In slowing down enough to enjoy a moment instead of racing through it.
In telling the people around me that I love them.
In saying thank you more often.
In allowing myself to feel sad — without shame.
The emotions matter. Grief matters. Exhaustion matters.
But we cannot live only in the heaviness.
Urgency or Gentleness?
So now I’m sitting with questions rather than answers:
Do we need urgency — or perspective?
Do we need courage — or gentleness?
Do we need to move faster — or slower?
Do we need advice — or awareness?
Do we need change — or acceptance?
Maybe the truth is we need both.
We need urgency to remind us that time is not guaranteed.
We need gentleness to remind us that we are human.
We need courage to face the hard days.
We need perspective to see that even hard days hold beauty.
Learning to Breathe While the Clock Ticks
Purpose, I’m learning, might not be about racing the clock.
It might be about learning to breathe while it ticks.
And maybe the real question isn’t “How much time do we have?”
Maybe it’s:
Are we truly living the time we’re given?
