2:00 AM.

Lost in someone else's dream.

My parents always dreamed of this path for me. A stable job. A guaranteed future. A title that carries respect. Their voices were louder than my own. Their hopes became my script. And so, I followed. Not out of passion, but out of duty.

Now, I move through my days like a character in a book I don’t remember picking up. I sit in class, surrounded by future teachers who seem to belong here. They speak of their love for teaching, their excitement for the classroom, their eagerness to shape young minds. I smile, nod, pretend. But deep inside, I wonder — why don’t I feel the same?

Each assignment feels like an echo of a question I’m too afraid to answer. Do I belong here? Every lesson plan I draft, every microteaching I did, every learning aid I invent— it all feels like I’m watching someone else live my life. Like I am a spectator, not a participant.

The future looms ahead, a government teaching post waiting for me at the finish line. A promise of stability, a mapped-out life. But what if stability isn’t the same as happiness? What if security feels more like a cage than a comfort?

I am tired. Burnt out. Drifting through the motions of a life I never truly chose, trying to convince myself that this will all make sense eventually. That one day, I’ll wake up and feel like I belong.

But I don’t.

And I don’t know how to step off this path without shattering everything.

So I keep walking. Hoping that somewhere along the way, I will either find the “nyala rasa” as a teacher — or the courage to change direction. Hoping that with every doubt, with every quiet whisper of this isn’t for me, I am inching closer to something else. Something real.

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A snippet of my Medium entry, when life gets really tough.