The Harder Choice

It’s always easier to give up.

To believe that none of this matters. That we’re all just ticking clocks waiting to stop. That we live, we hurt, we ache, and then we die. The end. No glory. No grand purpose. Just silence.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe we really do vanish — forgotten in two generations, names erased from memory like dust swept off a table.

But still… I ask myself:
Is that how I want to leave?

Do I want my final thought to be regret? Regret that I didn’t fight harder? That I didn’t try one more time? That I let the world crush me before I ever figured out who I could’ve been?

It’s easy to surrender to the weight.
It’s harder to find a reason to keep waking up.
To work, to struggle, to chase meaning even when everything inside you whispers, “What’s the point?”

But maybe the point isn’t glory.
Maybe it’s just trying.
Maybe it’s being able to say, with whatever breath is left in your lungs at the end of the road:
“I didn’t give up. I did everything I could.”

That takes more courage than most people admit.

Because life is cruel sometimes. It rips people from you without warning. It makes you bury dreams you held onto since you were a kid. It asks you to smile while drowning. And it never gives you all the answers.

But you — you still have a choice.

You can die with nothing but unspoken wishes and half-lived days.
Or you can die exhausted — scraped, scarred, but proud. Knowing that even when everything told you to quit, you kept walking.

I’ve thought about giving up more times than I can count.
But then I think about the people I love.
I think about the promises I made.
And I remember: giving up is easy.
But living — truly living — is the hardest, most defiant act of all.

And I’m not ready to stop fighting yet.