I’ve been in this weird headspace lately where life is just… strange. On the surface, everything is fine. I go to work, eat relatively healthy, try to stay on top of errands, keep things running — the usual. But underneath it all, there’s this constant feeling of dull pressure, like I’m being stretched thin by things that don’t really matter. It’s like I’m always busy, but rarely present.
Every day feels packed, but nothing sticks. I go through the motions, check off tasks, scroll a bit, eat, sleep, repeat. I end the day drained, like I ran a marathon in my head — but can’t really remember anything meaningful that happened. It’s not burnout in the dramatic sense, just this low-grade hum of tiredness and disconnection that never really turns off.
Socially, things have gotten quieter too. I barely see my friends anymore. Most of them are still into drinking and going out — stuff that used to feel exciting but now just feels… loud and repetitive. There was no big falling out. Just different rhythms now. Slower ones. And sometimes I sit with that and wonder if it’s just part of growing up, or if something deeper got lost along the way.
And then my brain starts spinning, usually late at night, when everything’s quiet. I start thinking about the future — and it honestly kind of scares me. Not in a dramatic, apocalyptic way, but in that creeping “things-are-moving-too-fast” way. AI is suddenly everywhere. Wars are happening in the background of our everyday lives. Economies feel fragile. Everything seems more unstable than it used to be, like we’re just pretending things are normal while the ground shifts under us.
And weirdly, my mind keeps drifting back to 2006. I don’t even know why exactly — maybe because it felt slower. Simpler. The internet was just fun and weird, not all-consuming. There were fewer screens, fewer existential threats in the news feed. Boredom existed, but it didn’t feel dangerous — it felt open. It felt like space to breathe. Now everything feels compressed, even rest.
I don’t think I’m depressed. I’m not miserable. But I feel… detached. Like I’m watching my life from the outside, waiting for it to feel like mine again. There’s this quiet emptiness running underneath everything, like background static. Not loud enough to break me, just enough to make everything feel slightly out of tune.
Anyone else feel like this? Have you figured out how to shake it — or at least live with it in a way that makes sense?
I feel the same way. I’m in college right now and haven’t even tried applying for internships. I’m entering my third year and am just too anxious from my inaction and my anxiety is causing my inaction. I honestly have no idea how to achieve my career goals besides interning and getting certifications. I feel like my university’s computer science program which I’m entrenched into is not preparing me for any of this. It’s been years since I programmed anything and I feel like a wet sausage sliding into mute failure. Not good, not bad. I don’t even know what the reward for doing anything is and haven’t for a long time. I just feel anxiety and confusion and want to be a network engineer but don’t know the right words to say to the right people at the right time. An analogy is like being an egg forced to become a chick by the time you are laid by the chicken. If you aren’t by then, you crack open and spill everywhere and have wasted all of your time.