Have I Maxed Out?

I’m just going to lead with the fact that I’m not a great writer, but I don’t mind scribbling words together for a public audience. I’ve tried blogging for some years now, following the obvious cycle of trying and abandoning it, and this joins the list as my most recent attempt. This might be the kick-start I need or the end of a journey that never really started.

So yeah, my state of mind lately...

Everybody starts out with a dollar and a dream. At least, I like to think so. We all grow up in different environments, and I believe those environments play a major role in shaping our dreams. They influence what our comfort zones look like, whether we’re happy inside them, and whether we want to step out of them.

For this, I’m going to focus on the people who stepped out of their comfort zones. Basically, people with big dreams. You do everything you feel you need to do to be successful and, let’s say, you’ve had a relatively smooth and progressive life. That experience strengthens the belief that you’re not simply going to fail. You start to feel like life is on your side and that if you work hard and do the right things, everything will go well. You see that feeling? It fuels dreams. In your head, you’re probably already retired by 40. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. I’m a big fan of dreaming big, going big or going home. You know the likes.

Where’s the problem?

It’s 2026, and the world has changed drastically over the last few years. Trust me, the change hasn’t been linear, and the disruption has been crazy. Keeping up has been tough, but I believe everyone has been trying endlessly. You could call it a kind of pandemic that has affected everyone in some way.

Going back to our smooth-sailing big dreamer, there are still people in that category whose lives continue to go well. Then there’s another group that may have hit a wall. You’ve been trying to keep up with a changing world while also trying to keep up with your dreams, but nothing seems to be working. Obviously, you’re not going to give up because of that, so you keep trying harder and harder. But yeah, still nothing.

Then, on some random quiet morning, a question hits you:

“Have I maxed out?”

“Is this as far as I’m meant to go?”

I believe life operates with some kind of balance. There are people who’ll be happy and people who’ll be sad, people who’ll be rich and people who’ll be poor, people who’ll achieve their dreams and people who won’t. The question is, how much control does an individual have over which side of that balance they fall on? Now you see how valid the question “Have I maxed out?” can feel.

Navigating this?

Day-to-day life can be extremely tough. Here’s where it gets tricky. Remember how I said you’ve grown used to things running relatively smoothly? The people around you may have picked up on that too, and now there’s this general assumption that everything is fine and life is good. Even you begin to doubt your own emotions. Should I be sad, grateful, or both?

You could be struggling with depression and still not know how to explain it, or whether you even have the right to say you’re sad. When your life looks fine from the outside, you start questioning your own feelings. What exactly am I sad about? How do I tell someone I’m not okay when I can’t point to one obvious thing that’s wrong? So you keep it to yourself, not because the feeling isn’t real, but because you don’t know how to make it make sense.

I’m quite a positive person. I like to dream. I believe that if you can think it clearly, you can achieve it. Basically, the whole aspire to perspire loop. Lately, life has been kicking my ass, but I’m definitely going to fight back. There’s still a dream and there’s still a plan.

I’m just going to end this abruptly here. Hopefully, there’ll be a follow-up in the future, or maybe this will be my last attempt at writing. One way or another, we’ll see.