On living a more quiet life.
"Not wanting something is as good as having it."
Lately, I’ve felt a quiet craving rising in me. A craving to go inward. Not to escape, but to slow down enough to actually feel my life as it unfolds. To stop racing, stop performing, stop chasing what I think I should want. To simply be here for it all.
I want to be home. Grounded. Present with my family. Not in a rushed, check-the-box kind of way, but fully here. I want to catch the in-between moments, the messy ones. The ones we’ll remember not because they were extraordinary, but because we were together.
There was a time when I believed ambition meant being everywhere. Saying yes to everything. Showing up in every room. Staying visible. Staying relevant. But suddenly, ambition feels like alignment. Choosing what truly matters. Letting go of what doesn’t. Having the courage to live differently. To be… well, by most standards, boring.
These days, success looks like going to bed early, moving my body in the morning, and doing less in a world that constantly demands more. It looks like being in nature where I can finally hear my own thoughts again.
A few years ago, I lost my best childhood friend, Heidi, to stage 4 breast cancer. She was only 34 years old. Near the end of her life, she shared something I still think about every day.
“You see the smallest bird perched on top of the most vulnerable branch, and you actually take a moment to pause and witness the remarkable strength something so seemingly insignificant can have.”
That line lives in me now. We need to be more present. Heidi would have given anything to be here for the things we so often overlook. The mundane routines. The early mornings. The dinner table. The bedtime chaos. The softness of an ordinary day with nothing in the calendar.
We are here. We are alive. So why are we rushing through it? Why are we living a life we need to escape?
So now, I find myself in a new season.
A season where I don’t need to be in every room.
One where I no longer care about being part of every conversation or staying relevant in every space.
A season where I don’t need to prove I’m important.
One where I just live in a way that feels important to me.
This kind of freedom, the kind where you are no longer pulled in a thousand directions, is not loud. But it is powerful. And it is honest.
Enough is not something you arrive at. It is something you remember. It is found in who you are, not what you do. It lives in the presence you bring to your people. It is in being there with your kids before they grow out of the season you swore you would never forget. It is in the slow dinners, the deep belly laughs that you struggle to get under control. The rituals that make up a life, with the people who accept you for who you are, without judgment.
To live this kind of quiet life, you have to say no often.
You have to be willing to do things differently.
And yes, sometimes that is uncomfortable.
Not everyone will get it, and that is okay. Because in return, you get to live the quiet life you were always meant to live before the world convinced you it had to be louder.