There are some people I see around me for whom life has been the same throughout. And I wonder: don’t they get exhausted?
In my society itself, there are so many people I’ve been watching live the same life for as long as I’ve known them.
There’s one lady. She isn’t financially very stable, and she works at a small institute nearby. Every morning I see her leaving with heavy bags on her shoulder. Every evening she returns, looking like the burden has only grown. Over the years, the only change I’ve noticed in her is physical — her shoulders have started to droop. The weight she carries is no longer just in the bags. It’s in her posture, her pace, her silence.
The lady who stays in the apartment above mine has a somewhat similar story. Different job, different details, but the same rhythm. Wake up, work, come home, sleep, repeat. No vacations. No “extra” days. Just survival, stitched into a routine so tight there’s no room for a pause.
When I look at them, I feel sad. Not pity, something heavier. A kind of quiet grief for life that seems to have no end to it. We talk a lot about burnout from overworking, from chasing dreams too hard. But we do not talk about the exhaustion that comes from nothing. I feel there is a lot of exhaustion that life can give on waking up to the exact same struggle, knowing it's going to be same day after day and year after year, eating up full life.
For them, there’s no slow day or high energy day. Every day is the same day and heavy day. I sometimes have conversation with one of these ladies who is now around 75 years old, and she tells, she has no choice but to do it because she has to survive. I wonder what they dream about. Do they still dream? Or has routines wiped away everything. At her age she should go easy on life but she still shows up every single day. This is a different kind of strength living repetitive days all through the life. What I have seen with these ladies is that their lives may look the same from the outside. But inside, there’s a quiet war being fought against giving up. And they are e winning it, daily.
Seeing them makes my own complaints feel smaller. It reminds me to be grateful for the liberty I have to choose what I want to do and not get burdened up. It also reminds me to be kinder to people around me who have been so caught up in carrying their own weight. Some people do not have the luxury to go easy on life or put up their legs and say, finally I am done, their whole life keeps going on with just enough.
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