Private.

 There is beauty in privacy. Read that again. I know how it feels to think you’re inadequate. I know how it feels like thinking you’re lagging behind. Your mates are graduating. Your juniors are accomplishing great things. They are exposed and doing things, exploring the world while you feel stuck. Stuck with responsibilities to people and people who own people. The list is endless. You can just look away and decide not to care anymore but that’s not who you are. You’re not built to be selfish, you’re not built to look the other way. So, to feel like you matter, like you are important, like you’re not a failure, you seek compliments. You flaunt the littlest things. Little things impress you. You just want to be seen, you want to be appreciated, so you go the extra mile. Maybe if you do this, they’ll see you for what you’re worth. They will embrace all that you are and love you the way you are. You bend over so much your bones break, yet you keep bending over. They see your life online, the food and the colour, the influence and the poise and they reach out. That’s all you wanted. Friends. You just wanted friends. But why do you still feel so empty? Why does their smile make your skin crawl? Why does the little lie you tell stack up on more lies? Why does it feel so lonely despite the blitz and glitz? So, you ignore your voice and get down to doing more crazy things. You give more of yourself hoping for just a little warmth. But all you feel is empty and cold. You retreat back to your shell sad, you can’t eat and the beautiful day is a nuisance to you. You shut the doors and the curtains, you cry yourself to sleep every night. You pick up deadly habits and you become a shell of yourself. Your “friends” never reached out. They didn’t ask why you stopped attending their parties, why you stopped posting, why you just disappeared. So one day, you get up and attend a party. The glamour and all the bling is doing absolutely nothing for you. What breaks your heart is how your “friends” are up and about like you never left, like you were never even there. They see you coming and give the million watt smile that makes your hairs stand on end. You leave few minutes later and no one bothers asking why. There’s a gaping hole in your chest you can’t fill so you turn to those bad habits.  Privacy is beautiful, but only a few see it for what it really is. Keeping things for you alone is seen as having less. Stay quiet and it seems like you’re not doing well. That’s the major stereotype. Success is determined by the money sitting in the bank account and the number of followers you have. Success is being busy all the time and getting little sleep. That’s not true. Depending on who you are and what you want from life, success is what you make of it. It’s always in the process and many times, the process is silent. Your life seems almost mundane and static. But in the background within you, there’s a tsunami waiting to happen. A radical change. So guess what? You can be silent and still bring about changes. It’s not all about noise. Noise is just noise.