There’s something eerie about how easily we slip into this autopilot mode. We think we’re living, but are we? Or are we just existing in this endless cycle, day after day, numb to the potential that lies quietly beneath the surface?

I used to think I was living too, by checking off the boxes—career, relationships, hobbies that filled time. But there was a hollow echo to everything I did. A subtle discomfort that gnawed at me in quiet moments. It wasn’t until I started asking myself one simple but uncomfortable question that everything changed: What if this isn’t it?

Think about it. What if your goals, your daily routine, your version of success—isn't truly yours? What if you’ve adopted it from someone else’s definition of life? The more I asked myself this, the more I realized how deeply conditioned I was. From childhood, society, media…even well-meaning people who loved me. I had absorbed expectations that weren't aligned with my own inner desires.

When was the last time you questioned your decisions? Not the little ones like what to eat for dinner or where to go on vacation, but the big, life-defining ones. Are you living a life that resonates with your truest self, or one that satisfies external expectations? I had to dismantle the image I had of what I thought life should be. I had to face the discomfort of being in the void—of not knowing who I was without all these external markers. And in that space, something miraculous happened: I began to listen to the whispers of my inner space. Not the noise of the world, but the quiet, expansive realm inside that knows the deeper truths.

It’s not easy. Sometimes, when we pull back the curtain, we don’t like what we see. But that’s where the beauty lies. In the cracks. In the uncertainty. Because only when we stop pretending we know it all, can we start really living.

Ask yourself: Am I living the life I want or the life I've been told to want?

And if that question stirs something deep within you, then maybe it’s time to stop existing and start living.