Anger That Had Nowhere to Go

It has been more than seven days since I decided to reduce self-censorship and say what I mean when I feel it.

I moved from releasing myself from the burden of “being afraid of hurting people with my words,” to emotional chaos, to a state of near paralysis. For several days, I did not feel like doing anything. Not meditating. Not reading. Not praying. Not listening to music. Not even scrolling mindlessly.

It was not laziness. It was depletion.

Then, slowly, my energy began to return. I am writing to summarize this period.

***

Early in this period, I resigned from my second job (a casual job. I have a full-time job).

That decision had been pending for weeks. I kept postponing it, waiting for a clearer signal, a more comfortable timing, a better emotional state. But clarity rarely arrives when it comes to quitting something.

That day at work, during a quiet shift, I felt the familiar internal pressure to appear constantly productive. To keep moving even when there was no need to move. The forced busyness felt intolerable.

But this time, I decided to make the move to go ahead and quit the job.

So I sent the message. It was not impulsive.

The response from the head chef — who is also my friend — was calm and understanding. The exit was handled professionally. No resistance. No conflict.

That moment confirmed something important: sometimes the only thing keeping us stuck is our own hesitation.

***

Midway through this period, however, the discomfort returned.

The communication practice helped initially. Expressing irritation or disagreement early did reduce small resentments. But the deeper dissatisfaction remained.

That is when I understood: the issue was not primarily relational.

It was internal.

I called my mother because I needed an external perspective. Objectively, my life is functioning well. My career is progressing. My marriage is strong. My family relationships are stable.

Nothing is collapsing.

Yet I felt empty and unmotivated.

She shared that she had experienced a similar season years ago. Then we had a little chat before I had to end the call due to work.

But still, the unease lingered.

***

Eventually, I identified the source more clearly.

My frustration is not about what has happened.
It is about what has not happened — yet.

I impose accelerated timelines on myself. I interpret waiting as failure. I treat every hour as a performance metric.

Basically, I set unrealistically high expectations for myself, and I perceive not having achieved my goals yet as a failure.

An hour on Instagram becomes waste.
A commute without reading becomes inefficiency.
A quiet moment at work becomes lost opportunity.

My brain continuously optimises, compresses, evaluates.

If you have watched The Bear, you will recognise the internal atmosphere: urgency, intensity, precision. EVERY SECOND COUNTS.

But living permanently in that mode creates chronic internal threat perception. Uncertainty becomes danger. Rest becomes irresponsibility.

Eventually, the system overloads.

And when it overloads, motivation disappears.

***

Toward the end of this period, a colleague left my company. I gave her a small farewell gift. I expected a certain reaction.

It did not come.

Previously, that might have unsettled me. I might have analysed it. Personalised it.

This time, I did not.

I gave because I chose to give. Her reaction did not determine the value of the gesture.

That detachment is new.

The practice of saying what I mean has reduced my preoccupation with how I am perceived. When you stop filtering yourself excessively, you also stop over-monitoring others’ responses.

There is less negotiation happening internally.

***

Since this process has now exceeded a week, I can say this with more confidence: the experiment is not superficial. It is exposing deeper patterns — perfectionism, optimisation anxiety, intolerance of uncertainty.

Therefore, I am extending it to a full month.

Not to become blunt.
Not to disregard social intelligence.
But to reduce internal distortion.

I will continue to:

• Express early.

• Resist compulsive optimisation.

• Observe emotional fluctuations without dramatizing them.

• Rest without categorising it as time wasted.

***

Right now, I am not fully transformed. There is no big breakthrough. I am not suddenly calm or perfectly stable.

But something has changed.

The pressure inside my head is quieter. I am not trying to optimise every minute of my day as aggressively as before. I can now see that much of the stress I feel comes from myself, not from my actual circumstances. That awareness gives me space to breathe.

I am slowly moving back to living with intention instead of running on autopilot. Not every hour needs to be productive (except at work!). Not every moment needs to be maximised. I do not need to rush every part of my future.

For now, I am learning to move at a pace that I can sustain.

That is enough for this stage.