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“To live without reaching is to learn how to live.” ~attributed to Buddha
For most of my life, I assumed that getting there was the point. Like many people, I believed that adulthood would eventually provide a clear role, a measure of security, and a sense of belonging that I could point to and say, Oh! That is the matter. I am this. I was confident that if I worked honestly, followed what mattered and stayed true to my values, that moment would come.
Now, much later, I am faced with the possibility that it will never happen.
I know I’m not alone in this, even if we don’t talk about it often. Many of us hold an unspoken hope that effort will eventually turn into something recognizable – something stable, legible, and rewarding. When that doesn’t happen, we turn inward, assuming we’ve done something wrong or misunderstood the rules.
To remain, as I now understand, means to exist without that arrival. It means continuing to live a life that doesn’t resolve the way we expected. This essay is about what it feels like to be there—and why naming that experience matters.
There is a fear I rarely admit, even to myself. It’s not really a fear of failure, or aging, or financial uncertainty, although these are all close. It’s the fear of being embarrassed. Not in public. Not dramatically. silent. The kind that never causes a scene but remains in the background of family life, unspoken but felt.
I sometimes worry that my children see me as someone who — perhaps too casually — said things would be OK. That I will find my place. That I will come. I imagined myself as a father who could point to something concrete and say, here. This is where I landed.
Instead, I feel like someone who never found a place here.
Most of my adult life unfolded elsewhere – geographically, culturally, creatively. I worked, taught, built things, contributed. That was my aim. But it often exists outside the visible systems that provide legitimacy. When I tried to fully settle inside the culture to which I returned, I realized something painful: I didn’t know how to relate to it, and didn’t even know what to do with myself.
This realization happened gradually. Through job applications that went nowhere. Through polite rejections. Through the quiet discomfort of being asked, “So what do you do?” And realizing that the answer no longer fits neatly into a sentence.
What bothers me most is not that things didn’t go the way I expected. There is the fear that this lack of arrival might reflect on my children – that they will feel they have to explain it to me, or quietly distance themselves, or wonder if their father believed something that wasn’t true.
That belief – that honesty, caring and meaningful work will eventually translate into security and recognition – was not something I invented. I inherited this. And I pushed it forward, confident that it would stick.
Now I’m old enough to question whether it ever happened.
Aging has a way of intensifying these questions. When you’re young, disappointments seem temporary. There is still time to move forward, to reinvent, to come back later. As the years go by, the story seems less open. You start to see not only what you did, but also what you didn’t become.
And yet—I’m here.
still thinking. Still trying to live honestly. Still waking up every day inside a life that doesn’t give me the clarity I expected, but offers depth, responsibility and care. Many people reach this point silently, without any language, wondering if they are alone in the reckoning.
I don’t see myself as a sad person. I see myself as a person who doesn’t fit into the story he thought was supposed to be there. Someone who considers honesty as currency. Someone who believes that meaningful work will naturally lead to welcome.
Sometimes, I lie awake at night with a nagging thought: What if I misunderstood how the world worked? Not in a dramatic way – but in a gradual realization that the values ​​I lived by don’t always translate into security or status.
That fear does not come from dishonesty. It comes from dissonance – from the gap between what we are told matters and what is actually rewarded. And wondering how those we love will interpret that difference.
There is a certain loneliness in feeling like an outsider in your own culture. Not exile – just a persistent feeling that the dominant language never reached your mouth. The language of ambition, certainty, self-promotion. I’ve spent most of my life listening more than announcing, trying to stay in line rather than leading.
That way of existing has given me meaning. This has exposed me too.
I want to be clear about why I’m writing this.
I am not offering any solutions or lessons. I’m naming an experience that many people silently endure: living with care and intention and still not arriving where they thought they would. I am writing because naming it can reduce the isolation surrounding it. It’s easier to live when it feels shared.
I can make this a story of quiet victory. I can smooth the edges and suggest that everything worked out fine in the end. But that would miss the truth I’m trying to respect. It is a circular story as many lives are circular. Nothing has been solved here. That’s not a failure—it’s just honest.
I don’t really know how my kids see me. This fear probably resides most within me. But it speaks to something bigger than my own family. It reveals how deeply we connect value with visibility, success with legitimacy, and care with measurable outcomes.
I offered love. I pointed out. I offered to attend. I presented values ​​that didn’t fit neatly into resumes or retirement plans. Whether that will seem enough, I can’t control.
What I see now is that our culture offers little language for those who grow old without trophies. There is no ceremony for quiet contribution. Without markers, we begin to doubt ourselves.
Buddhist teachings remind us that clinging to an identity, outcome, or story is a source of suffering. I understand it intellectually. Emotionally, I still want my life to be meaningful in a way that others can recognize. Giving up that desire is not even a moment of clarity. This is a daily practice.
Some days I manage. Other days, the old fear returns – that I haven’t become who I thought I would be, that the ending I hoped for will never come.
What I’m learning along with that fear is this:
It is not necessary to take a pledge to be honest in life. Parents are not required to attend. Meaning does not require guarantees.
I did not reach. I may never come. But I stayed.
I stayed with the people I love. I stuck to the values ​​that mattered to me. I continued to pursue work that felt right, even if it did not bring me any reward. I stayed with myself when it would have been easy to disappear into bitterness or protest.
Living without reaching is not peaceful. It can be polite. But it is real.
And if this essay has a purpose, it’s just that: persistence matters — even when the ending is uncertain, even when the story doesn’t resolve, even when no one is giving it validation.
Sometimes stopping is not the path to meaning. Sometimes it makes sense.
About Tony Collins
Edward “Tony” Collins, EdD, MFA, is a documentary filmmaker, author, teacher, and disability advocate living with progressive vision loss from macular degeneration. Her work explores presence, care, resilience and the quiet power of small moments. He is currently completing books on creative scholarship and collaborative documentary filmmaking and shares personal essays about meaning, hope, and disability on Substack. Add: tonycollins.substack.com | iefilm.com
