There was a decade of my life where stillness felt like a mortal threat. I walked fast, spoke fast, answered messages within seconds, and treated every interaction as an emergency requiring immediate exertion.

Back then, speed was mistaken for passion, and urgency was confused with purpose. If I wasn't breathless, I felt irrelevant.

Then, without a single dramatic announcement, life began to slow me down. A few quiet disappointments, doors that closed no matter how hard I pounded on them, and the realization that the world does not collapse when you pause.

Today, I walk without rushing. Not because there is nowhere to go, but because I finally learned that the things truly worth reaching never demand that you run over yourself to get there.