On Emptiness
It isn’t something broken. It’s just part of being.
No lifestyle can permanently fill the human void.
We think freedom will fix it. “If I quit this job, I’ll finally breathe,” or “If I find love, the anxiety will disappear,” or “If I make more money, I’ll feel secure.”
One day when we find out, the highs don’t last. The momentary thrill fades, and the emptiness? It gets another shape and comes back.
When I was younger, I used to feel drained every morning driving to my corporate job. For years, that sluggish routine was my normal. Then in 2017, a string of events pushed me out of the corporate world. At first, it felt like freedom. But not long after, I found myself missing the things I once took for granted. The fancy office, the perks, the paid vacation. Funny how that works. You leave the corporate grind. Great. But guess what? The anxiety follows you into your new “freedom.” You move to that dreamy coastal town. No more bouncing around. But soon you realize it’s just another place to feel lost. You build a relationship. Beautiful. But sometimes you still feel that ache when the sense of disconnect hits.
Turns out, emptiness isn’t something broken. It’s part of being. Or as Milan Kundera put it, the unbearable lightness of being.
Turning a passion into a job won’t make every morning magical. Love and family are wonderful, but they won’t completely protect you from loneliness. And when the noise of life quiets down — no deadlines, no bosses, no pressure to perform — that’s often when the inner voice turns up.
The “ideal life”? A nice try on Instagram and TikTok. We see people posing in quiet Portuguese villages, sipping tea in Kyoto, or twirling under chandeliers in Paris. It all looks magical. But when you are actually there? The familiar emptiness still tags along.
Because the question isn’t Where am I?
It’s Who am I?
And that’s not something any location can answer.
The truth is, life doesn’t come with built-in meaning. We have to build it ourselves. And no, it’s not a weekend project or something you can check off a list. It’s ongoing. Messy. Personal. The kind of work that happens when no one’s watching.
I used to treat anxiety like an old faucet — just tighten a few bolts and it’ll stop leaking. Meditate it away. Fix the relationship. Reorganize the calendar.
But some feelings aren’t problems to solve. They’re signals. Loneliness. Self-doubt. That gut-punch of “What’s the point?” The harder you try to shut them up, the louder they get.
It’s wild, but the moment I stopped trying to fight those feelings and let them sit next to me, something shifted. Turns out, the more I accept myself right now, the more I move forward without dragging shame along.
Emptiness isn’t the enemy. That hollow feeling means you’re still alive enough to notice what’s missing. It’s an invitation to look closer, listen deeper, explore what you haven’t lived yet.
Real peace doesn’t come when you figure everything out. It comes when you make peace with not having all the answers.
So now, I don’t try to “conquer” anxiety. I let it stay. It’s not a welcome guest, but I know it when it shows up. I make myself have a conversation with it. It’s the first shake of something new trying to break through. Sometimes, the crack is where creativity finds its way in.
No job, no city, no perfect partner is going to hand you peace wrapped in a bow. And that’s okay.
Not every road needs to lead to some bright, flashing sign of “life purpose”. There’s no manual. No gold star waiting at the end.
I’ve stopped waiting for life to “settle down.” Because chasing that idea is exactly what keeps me restless.
The truth is, life is always shifting. People change. Bodies change. Dreams change.
That’s not failure. It’s flow.
And when I stop expecting life to give me perfect answers… I actually start writing my own story.
When I start to accept the mess, the in-between, the uncertainty, and just stand in the middle of it, something strange and beautiful happens.
I start to feel free.
