Somewhere Between Forcing and Free

I've been thinking about how much of my life I've spent pushing. Toward something. Against something. Trying to make things happen on a timeline that made sense in my head, but kept colliding with the actual shape of my life.

Work that felt urgent until it no longer did. Relationships I held onto past their season because letting go felt like failing. Plans I made and remade and made again, each time more convinced that this version would finally stick.

There's a particular kind of tired that comes from forcing. It doesn't announce itself. It just shows up one day as a heaviness you can't explain, in the middle of a perfectly fine day, doing perfectly fine things, and wondering why none of it feels like enough.

I think about water a lot. How it doesn't force its way anywhere. It just finds the path that's already open and moves.

I don't know what it feels like to live like that yet. To let love arrive without engineering it. To let work unfold without white-knuckling every outcome. To let life be what it is today, without needing it to be what I planned for tomorrow.

But I'm starting to wonder what I've missed while I was busy forcing.

What was already flowing that I kept swimming against?

-Oluwademilade from MANI