the survivability of human race never ceases to amaze me
a short essay
there is something holy about how people survive. how they carry on, often unnoticed, through the weight of their own worlds. you can sit across from someone on a train, in a café, on a call, and have no idea that they’re surviving something. their father just died. their partner left. they’re trying to forgive their mother. they haven’t eaten a full meal in days. their world fell apart last week and somehow, somehow, they’re still here—picking a playlist for the drive, texting back, folding their laundry, pretending like they’re fine enough to get through the day. this quiet persistence, this refusal to give in completely to despair, is the most human thing i know. and we don’t talk about it enough.
we rarely pause to consider how many people, including you, are walking around half-shattered but still smiling. we don’t often see the heaviness that lives inside your silences, the way you hold your breath in crowded rooms just to keep from falling apart. and yet you move through grocery aisles, through conversations, through commutes, through the ache. you choose outfits for days you don’t want to live through. you listen to others talk while your own thoughts scream in grief. that kind of endurance deserves reverence. it should be honored, not ignored. there’s a sacredness to it, this quiet resilience that so often goes unseen but never goes unfelt—not if we’re really looking.
survival isn’t always about grand recoveries. sometimes it’s about simply staying. about breathing through the ache when you’re convinced it will crush you. about sending that one message when all you want to do is disappear. about standing in the shower with your forehead pressed to the wall, letting the water wash away the tears you didn’t let anyone else see. there’s something sacred in how you continue despite the aching. how you return to the world, again and again, even when you’re uncertain, even when you no longer recognize yourself. sometimes survival looks like showing up to work after a sleepless night. sometimes it’s feeding your pet when you can barely feed yourself. sometimes it’s laughing too hard at something silly, just to remind yourself that you’re still capable of joy.
truth is, everyone is carrying something. the stories they don’t tell. the heartbreaks they buried under routine. the dreams that crumbled when nobody was watching. and still, they show up. they hold doors open for strangers. they remember to water their plants. they give good advice even when their own life is unraveling. that’s what amazes me the most—not just that people survive, but that they do so with grace, with warmth, with love. they continue to be soft in a world that keeps giving them reasons to go hard. they still fall in love. they still believe in good things. they still make plans for weekends, still say i miss you, still sing in the car on the way home like nothing ever hurt them.
you see it everywhere if you look closely. in the woman who brings tea to her colleague even when her hands are trembling. in the man fixing dinner for his kids after a long day of holding himself together. in the friend who sends voice notes at two in the morning just to say, i know it hurts right now, but i’m here. people are quietly saving each other all the time. not with grand gestures but with small kindnesses. with moments of presence. with the sheer willingness to keep loving, even with broken hearts. it’s easy to overlook, but it’s there. in the background of everything. a quiet chorus of survival humming beneath the noise. an unspoken understanding that we are all just doing our best to hold it together.
and then there are those small restarts we all go through. the ones no one applauds. the morning you finally clean your room after weeks of apathy. the first time you cook a real meal after a long depression. the day you delete old photos and it doesn’t shatter you. the moment you realize you laughed without forcing it. the evening you walk past the place that once broke you, and feel nothing. these are not small things. these are milestones. these are turning points disguised as mundane acts of everyday life. no one else might notice them—but they’re proof. proof that we’re still trying. proof that we haven’t given up on ourselves completely.
and maybe that’s the heart of it—the trying. we keep trying. we hold on to the thin thread of hope that tomorrow might feel better. and sometimes it doesn’t. but we try anyway. we go for a walk. we make tea. we write something down just to see what it looks like outside our heads. we listen to sad songs, not to stay sad, but to feel less alone in it. we send each other memes. we put on face masks. we talk about books and movies and the future. and somewhere along the way, things shift. something opens. something breathes. something makes space for a future that didn’t feel possible last week. healing comes not like a lightning bolt, but like a slow, steady tide. and we learn to trust it.
the human spirit, your spirit, is endlessly astonishing. not because it’s flawless. not because it’s never afraid. but because even when it is broken, it still reaches. even when it is tired, it still hopes. you fall apart in private, and then you put yourself back together in public like nothing happened. you do it with a laugh, with a playlist, with a perfectly worded email, with mascara and podcasts and awkward jokes and small talk and moments that make you feel like yourself again. and maybe that’s both the tragedy and the wonder of being human. you carry so much. and still, you offer so much. you are still capable of gentleness. you are still capable of love.
and even you—yes, you deserve to be held too. to be taken care of. you who are always holding everything together, always showing up for everyone else. let someone show up for you. let someone try. you don’t have to carry it all alone. it’s okay to rest your weight in someone’s arms, even if just for a while. let yourself be loved, not just by others, but by you. try, for yourself. try, for me.
we don’t give people enough credit. not nearly enough. not for the heartbreaks they survived. not for the fears they quieted alone in the dark. not for the things they wanted to say but swallowed for the sake of peace. not for the ways they’ve kept going when everything inside them was begging them to stop. we don’t always see the cost of their calm, their patience, their smiles, their silence. but it’s there. it’s always there. and still, they go on. they survive. they live. they try. and that, my friend, is the quiet miracle happening all around us every single day. not in headlines or hashtags. not in stories we share loudly. but in the invisible endurance of human hearts that refuse to give up. and to me, there is nothing more sacred than that.
a short note:
someone very close to me, someone deeply special, recently said something that stayed with me. we were on facetime, and i was rambling, tired from hours of programming and coding, feeling drained and worn out. and she, in her calm and grounding way, told me to shush. she told me to keep going. she reminded me that i’m building something big and honest, and that alone is a blessing. she said i should be proud of it. and she was right.
what i want to tell you is this: the real blessing is her. the way she shows up for me. her presence is everything.
and she’s not the only one. i have so many beautiful people in my life like her. and i know that sometimes, especially when work piles up and i lose myself in it, i overlook their presence. i forget the weight they carry in my life. but i love them all. truly. this piece, this moment, this reflection, it’s a wholesome one. because i am in love with humanity. with the way people care. the way they stay. the way they lift you quietly.
i’m starting this month with a full heart and big hopes (like always). there are plans ahead, and i’m really excited for all that’s coming. thank you for being here. every single one of you. all ten thousand of you. you matter more than you know. i am always there for you all.
This is so beautiful and true. I’ve thought similar thoughts many times over the years; your short essay captured this as well as anything I’ve read. Thank you.
this is genius !!