Is it alignment or pressure?
The question I ask myself whenever I start rushing towards the next thing
A few days ago, I really panicked a little when I saw the Substack note below. What? 2027 is less than seven months away? And the last one…people born in 1990 are about 14 years away from turning 50?!? Of course, that set me on fire and I got to work reassessing my plans for the rest of the year.
But then, I paused. I reminded myself not to let urgency culture turn me into someone so focused on what’s next, that they miss what is right in front of them. I thought of the recent moments spent in the city with my family, the short hour spent in Central Park under afternoon sun chatting with my sister, the laughter around the dinner table – those moments are priceless.
Amidst the urgency and the ‘what’s next’, we sometimes forget to be in the moment. To watch the sunsets, the admire the city’s trees in full bloom. The thing is, like Eckhart Tolle said, “Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now."
Are your actions taken from alignment or pressure?
If you find yourself constantly jumping on to the next thing – pause and ask yourself: why?
There’s a difference between moving towards something because you genuinely want to, and moving because you’re carried along by the speed rest of the world. One comes from alignment, while the other comes from pressure.
In a world that moves so fast, one of the bravest things we can do is slow down.
In a world that moves so fast, and is moving even faster because of A.I, one of the bravest things we can do is slow down. There’s no obligation to give an immediate answer when someone asks: “What’s your next career move” or “When will you restart dating?” or even “where are you travelling to next?”
Most of the time, at least this is true for me, we fumble for an answer to make ourselves seem more certain than we actually are. We say something so we don’t need to sit with the awkward silence that comes after “I don’t know”.
Sitting with Stillness
June is often a month for reassessing and planning the rest of the year. But if things feel like they’re shifting right now, and you’re unsure what the rest of your year will look like, that is okay, really.
Sit with the stillness. There’s no rush to find an answer. Actually, when we rush for an answer, we often end up grabbing answers that don’t belong to us.
During a more uncertain period of my life, my yoga teacher said, “meditate more”. It wasn’t the answer I wanted at the time, but in hindsight, I’m so grateful she told me to do that. She gave me a permission slip to do something which I didn’t give to myself at the time – the permission to sit in uncertainty for a while.
It’s hard, yes, but it taught me that answers don’t come through force. More often, they’ll show up in lighter moments where we’re having fun, walking in nature or doing the things that bring us joy.
Though 2027 is really just six months away. there is no need to accelerate everything. Instead block out 30 minutes, open a blank page in your journal and write: What are the most important things I need to do for the remainder of 2026?
Set a timer for 20-minutes and free-write. Let your answers come to you.
INSPIRATION
To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear. – Mark Nepo
With love,
Claudia.