The Fear of Living Just to Survive

When I was taking a break from studying at the library in University, I remember putting on this YouTube video, ‘A Quiet evening in the South Of France’. There wasn’t any background music. Sunlight peaking through the window, you could hear the gentle rustle of curtains swaying from the wind, birds chirping. No narration. No background music, just pure stillness. It felt like a world I didn’t live in. I remember thinking it was more like a lifestyle I wanted to have, but couldn’t.

It felt like for a moment, I could be in that room where everything moved slowly and no one wanted anything from me. I dreamt of what it might feel like to just be free.

I can’t remember the last time my mind has been at peace. There’s just so many tabs open all the time, constant thoughts overlapping. My restless mind trying to stay calm. I feel like I’ve constantly been on the run for years, one thing after the another. Running to keep up, to stay afloat, to meet deadlines, to meet expectations. Running to prove I’m not falling behind in a race I never even meant to enter. When I was in high school, I was studying all the time. I stopped playing the way I used to. I went outside less, even though I loved it. I remember watching the sunlight from my window and thinking, maybe later. But later never came.

When I got into university, it turned into a race, to make the right connections, find the right jobs, say the right things. To stand out. To survive every semester without falling apart.

And when I graduated, it didn’t slow down. It just shifted. Suddenly it was about moving cities, meeting new people, learning how to shrink and stretch myself just enough to fit into rooms that didn’t feel made for me. It was about learning how to work, how to pretend I was okay, how to carry everything without letting it show. It’s hard.

When I think about that video, it makes me want to vanish for a while. Just hit pause on this repetitive life. Not dramatically, just slip into a slower life. I can imagine myself waking up with the windows open, the sound of waves just beyond the window. I walk to a market in the morning, buy fresh bread, strawberries, and whatever else looks good without checking my bank account or calorie count.

Maybe I could speak broken French, forget to check my phone for however long and talk with random strangers. Maybe I could read all the books I’ve been wanting to read, dance under the streets lights at midnight. For once, hoping, I don’t have to be anything for anyone.

But what hurts most is that the more time I spend on social media, the more I see other people living that kind of life, or at least, pretending to.

One post after another. People backpacking across Europe, writing “slow mornings” in the captions like it’s just normal. Like it’s that easy.

It makes me wonder:

Am I doing something wrong? Am I just falling behind? Do they just have less responsibilities?

But instead of booking flights, I’m budgeting expenses. I’m not buying souvenirs, I’m trying to figure out what groceries to buy every two weeks. I’m not wandering, I’m working. If not working, I’m sleeping because getting through every day, every week requires way more work than I ever imagined. Some days, just existing feels like its own kind of job, one I never applied for but have to show up to anyway. And, it starts to feel like the life I’m building is only about holding things, myself together. Even when I tell myself social media is so fake, that people can post all the good things and never the bad, it still stings. The comparison, the restlessness. The fear that life is slipping by while I check off to- do lists and measure my days in productivity.

But I’m aware I can’t drop everything and leave. The world demands things. The kind of responsibilities that don’t pause just because you feel tired. Life costs money. And peace, it turns out, costs time. Time we rarely feel like we have. Time we feel guilty for wanting.

So whether I like it or not, I probably won’t be dancing under the stars in France, even if I think about it more often I like to an admit. Maybe I can borrow little pieces of that life.

Maybe it’s in how I spend my Sunday morning after a busy week of work.

Maybe it’s in how I drink my coffee slowly, without a screen in front of me.

Maybe it’s in how I say no to things that drain me, even if they look so tempting on the outside.

Maybe it isn’t about looking for peace in faraway places, but for within yourselves, in your normal mundane things.

It’s easy to say all of this. It’s even easier to write about it, to talk about slowing down, being gentle with yourself, finding peace in small things.

It’s hard not to be hard on yourself when you know that if you don’t keep going, you really might fall behind. When rest feels like a risk. When everything around you keeps moving, even when you’re tired.

I think about this all the time, are we living just to survive, or surviving just to live?

Maybe that’s what it all comes down to.Trying to figure out how to keep going without losing yourself along the way.

My therapist ends almost every session with the same reminder: Be easy on yourself.

I don’t think we understand how much pressure we put on ourselves, every single day. I felt like I had to have it all together by now. The other day, a friend sent me a Reel, it was about Friends, the show. It said, “Maybe you're only in Season 2. They didn’t have it figured out until Season 10.”

And I guess that’s the thing: we don’t talk enough about the middle. The in-between. The figuring it out slowly. I think the most radical thing we can do in a world that runs on burnout is to be kind to yourself.