I wake up, do my duties, earn a fixed salary, chase early retirement, and follow a routine I’ve built over years. Still, deep inside, something feels incomplete. Like I’m wasting something precious—my life.
That feeling hit me the hardest one morning when I saw not just a street, but the truth of our world.
"Man questioning life while looking out the window."
It started like any other day. But as I walked through the local streets, the reality around me refused to hide. I saw things I often ignored—poverty, pain, mental illness, and suffering in forms I hadn’t fully noticed before.
A woman, perhaps in her 40s, sat barefoot with a child sleeping in her lap. Her saree was faded, her eyes even more so—blank from exhaustion. Just ahead, a man was talking to himself, wandering with no purpose. His mind, perhaps lost long ago, still seeking something. Children played in the dust, chasing scraps near overflowing garbage.
And suddenly, I thought—what is their life?
And even more painfully—what is mine?
The Man with the Plastic Bag
"Elderly man holding a plastic bag, lost in thought"
Later that day, I sat quietly on a broken bench, thinking. That’s when an old man sat beside me. He wore layers of worn-out clothes and clutched a small plastic bag as if it held treasure.
We were silent at first. Then he asked gently, “You waiting for someone?”
I said, “No… just thinking.”
He pointed at the birds on the electric wire. “They live free, but still come back to the same wire every day. We also return… even when we have nowhere.”
I asked where he was from.
“From everywhere… and nowhere,” he replied.
He said he used to work in a factory. Lost his job. Then his house. Family gone. “But I’m okay,” he smiled. “At least I’m still breathing. Some people live in big houses, but their hearts are buried.”
He opened his bag. Inside was a faded photo, a broken comb, and a biscuit packet.
“This is all I carry. But sometimes I remember laughter. That’s heavier than anything.”
Before leaving, he said something that stuck to my soul:
“Beta, don’t wait too long to feel alive. Sometimes, in chasing better, we forget to be grateful.
As the old man walked away, clutching his little plastic bag like it held the weight of his memories, I sat still—thinking about what he said.
"Some people live in big houses, but their hearts are buried."
That stayed with me.
Because it reminded me of others who are quietly buried under the weight of a world that barely sees them—people with disabilities.
I started thinking: just like that old man, so many disabled people carry invisible burdens—trauma, pain, rejection, loneliness—and still move through each day with a strength most of us can't begin to understand.
Some of them can’t speak clearly, but they feel everything.
Some can’t walk, but they dream bigger than anyone.
Some can’t work traditional jobs, but they carry unmatched wisdom.
And yet, they are often overlooked—just like that old man with his plastic bag.
We see the wheelchair, not the willpower.
We see the stutter, not the story.
We see their struggle, but not their strength.
And worst of all—we assume they need pity. But what they
really need is respect.
And as I thought about people with disabilities, something inside me connected another thread—those who grew up emotionally disabled by the absence of love, by the silence of a missing parent.
Just like physical disability changes how a person navigates the world, emotional absence in childhood changes how a person navigates life.
The child who never had a father's hand to hold learns to be brave too soon—and trusts too late.
The child who never had a mother’s arms to run to often spends life searching for comfort in places that can never give it.
They may look “normal” on the outside—dressed well, smiling in photos, showing up to work—but inside, there’s a permanent bruise where love should have lived.
They grow into adults who question their worth.
They build walls instead of homes.
They keep people at a distance—because when your first experiences with love were cold or inconsistent, you don’t know if love will stay.
And that, too, is a kind of disability. One that society rarely talks about.
Just like the old man with the plastic bag.
Just like the people with disabilities we often ignore.
These are the people among us who live quietly with pain.
Not because they are weak.
But because they were never given the chance to feel safe enough to be soft.
And in that moment—watching the old man disappear into the crowd, thinking about those with disabilities, and the countless adults shaped by loveless childhoods—I understood something deeply:
Not all pain is visible.
But some pain is.
You can see it in the wheelchair someone pushes every day.
You can hear it in the silence of a child who never got to say “Papa” or “Ma.”
You can feel it in the quiet stares of those who’ve learned to smile through grief.
We often think pain hides. But sometimes, it’s right there—in someone’s tired eyes, in their forced laughter, in the way they avoid affection or flinch at kindness.
Pain doesn’t always scream.
Sometimes, it sits beside you on a bench holding a plastic bag.
Sometimes, it walks past you on crutches, or in broken shoes, or behind a mask of strength.
Sometimes, it grows up inside a child who never had the chance to be a child.
That’s when I realized…
Pain doesn’t need to be invisible to be ignored.
And maybe it’s time we stopped waiting for someone to cry before we care.
Real Face of Society
And the more I thought about it, the more it hurt…
Why do we ignore so much pain that's right in front of us?
Why do we walk past the child begging at a signal without even a glance?
Why do we stay silent when a friend breaks down but says, “I’m fine”?
Why do we look away when someone struggles—with disability, with grief, with invisible trauma?
And then the answer hit me—
It's not because we’re heartless… but because we’ve been taught to survive by shutting off empathy.
We’ve been raised in a world where showing care is seen as weakness.
Where success is more valuable than compassion.
Where numbness is normal, and pain is a personal problem.
And that—that is the real face of society.
A society where we scroll past real struggles and double-tap fake smiles.
Where we shame the poor, ignore the broken, and blame the hurting for hurting.
Where we’ve been taught to “mind our business,” even when someone’s silently crying for help.
It’s not evil.
It’s worse.
It’s cold.
And in that coldness, we’ve all lost
a little piece of our humanity.
And maybe that’s when I truly understood…
Why do I feel like I’m wasting my life.
Because deep down, I know life isn’t meant to be lived on autopilot.
Not just working, earning, eating, scrolling, sleeping.
Not just chasing comfort while turning away from the pain around me.
Maybe I feel this emptiness because I was never meant to live only for myself.
Because when I ignore the child without parents, the old man with nothing, the disabled person judged for simply existing, or the silent sufferer beside me…
I ignore the part of me that wants to feel alive. To care. To matter.
And that’s why—even with a job, a salary, and a planned retirement—I feel lost.
Not because I don’t have enough.
But because I’ve stopped feeling enough.
And maybe… wasting life isn’t about doing nothing.
Maybe it’s about doing everything, without meaning.
Is There a Solution?
Maybe we can’t fix everything.
But maybe we don’t have to.
We can start small:
Open our eyes.
Talk less, judge less, listen more.
Respect people who fight battles we don’t understand.
Raise kids with empathy, not just ambition.
Choose to care, even when it’s uncomfortable.
How to Live Peacefully in a Broken World?
The world may be broken, but we don’t have to be.
Peace doesn’t mean ignoring pain. It means carrying compassion wherever you go. It means feeling deeply and acting gently.
It means choosing kindness, not because it changes the world instantly, but because it changes you.
Live with empathy.
Walk with awareness.
Speak with softness.
Listen with your heart.
Because in the end, real peace doesn’t come from riches or success.
It comes from knowing we didn’t waste our life only thinking of ourselves.
Final Message
So if you ever feel like you’re wasting your life, maybe it’s not because you’re doing too little… but because you’re feeling too much, and the world has taught you to hide it.
But don’t numb your heart. Don’t shrink your soul to fit into a world that forgot how to care.
Feel everything. Notice the forgotten. Love the broken. And most importantly—be present.
Because presence is the rarest gift today. And sometimes, just being there—for yourself, for a stranger, for a child without a parent—that is what gives life its meaning.
Your life is not wasted.
It’s just beginning to awaken.