There was a time when I thought movement was the only way forward.
If I kept building, pushing, proving — something would eventually settle.
It didn’t.
What settled was something else.
The noise.
The need to be understood.
The need to be needed.
The need to outrun discomfort with accomplishment.
Today the office is quiet.
The server is down.
There is nothing to respond to, nothing to chase.
And I feel… grateful.
Not for achievement.
Not for recognition.
Just for the steadiness of being here.
I used to think gratitude came after something happened —
a podium, a breakthrough, a reconciliation.
Now it arrives in stillness.
In a chair by a window.
In a body that no longer aches to be somewhere else.
In the simple recognition that this life — as it is —
is enough.
There’s a different kind of wealth in that.
The kind that doesn’t fluctuate.
The kind that doesn’t require applause.
The kind that lives in the long breath between doing and being.
And today, I am content to stay there.