#15 Living wider, or deeper?

I keep noticing this quiet tension in myself.

A pull between wanting to live deeper and feeling called to live wider.

Deeper looks like presence. Intention. Fewer things, fewer commitments, fewer identities to maintain. Meditation. Simplicity. Attention that isn’t constantly divided. A life that is actually felt while it’s happening.

Wider looks like movement. Goals. Building. Becoming. Saying yes. Expanding what’s possible. Measuring progress. Staying relevant. Participating fully in the world as it is.

These impulses don’t exactly feel like opposites - but they don’t fully trust each other either. Sometimes I wonder if my drive to achieve is an old pattern still running the show. Something learned early, rewarded often, rarely questioned. A quiet belief that momentum equals worth, that slowing down is risky, that choosing less might mean becoming less.

Other times, it feels dishonest to frame achievement as something to heal from. As if wanting to build, create, grow, or contribute must automatically mean I’m not at peace. As if ambition can only come from conditioning, never from aliveness or care or a genuine desire to offer something meaningful.

I live in an African city in 2026, shaped by Western capitalist ideas of productivity and success. The systems around me reward speed, output, visibility. Opting for depth can feel naïve, even irresponsible. Like stepping out of a game that you can still "loose" whether you play or not. And yet, the cost of living wider without pause is downplayed, or downright ignored. Attention thins. Meaning gets outsourced to metrics. A full life can start to feel strangely uninhabited.

My question for 2026: can I slow down without sabotaging myself? Can I do less without sabotaging my future? Can I do less, and in doing so actually be more?

I don’t need final answers. But this year I choose the courage to notice when something wants to change - and to pause long enough to see whether that change is chosen, or simply familiar.