Life can feel like a comfortable trap, a cage we build for ourselves and then lock from the inside. This is a choice, though often an unconscious one.
This isn’t freedom; the idea of choice can be an illusion when we are constrained by what we maintain. A lifestyle. A payment. We justify it because everyone does it and we must keep up. We tell ourselves we are privileged, but really, we are just accepting a path laid out for us, a path not of our own making.
The world shifts and new trends emerge. AI boomed and investment poured in. The pressure to conform is immense, fueled by a fear of “falling behind.” This fear is a powerful tool that keeps us on the hamster wheel, always chasing, never truly arriving.
But I choose to fall behind if that is the cost of true freedom. The freedom to define my own success and to measure my worth by my own metrics, not by external validation or the latest buzz.