I’ve been noticing something.

More and more, the people I talk to—smart people, ambitious people, people who care—are quietly admitting they’re tired. Of-it-all.

Like something in them is worn thin from trying too hard for too long. Not just with work, but with life.

We’ve been running faster and faster. For what, exactly?

To collect things we didn’t really need in the first place? To prove something to people we don’t even like? Or to keep up appearances that make us feel more trapped than seen?

And the funny things is, many of those people we feel we need to impress are just as exhausted. We don’t like them not because they’re bad people but because they make us feel bad about ourselves.

I can see the shift in myself these days, looking for something else. And I’m hearing it in others too.

Not more advice, hacks. Not even more time.

But space.

Space to do things that aren’t optimized, swap stories with no real takeaway. Or to just walk aimlessly for hours. Sometimes to just laugh at dumb memes and talk about life, not business. To be off-script, unbranded, unpolished.

And here’s what’s strange: doing those things doesn’t feel bad. What feels bad is the voice in our heads telling us it should.

But I think the most human thing we can do right now is to just pause. Not to quit everything or give up all, but enough to remember what life feels like when we’re not trying to “make it”.