On the Edge, Still Breathing

 

It has been a long time since I wrote about a book, a game, or life in general.

Maybe that silence says something.

I have been trying, in my own imperfect way, to stay happy, sane, functional, and hopeful. I have tried to keep moving even when the road felt empty. But lately, I have reached a place where I feel tired in a way sleep cannot fix.

Not tired of one bad day.

Tired of carrying the same questions for years.

So I am writing this down, not as a final statement, not as a cry for attention, and not because I expect many people to read it. I am writing because sometimes pain needs a place to sit outside the body. Sometimes a person has to look at his own wounds clearly before he can decide what to do with them.

These are the things that have been bothering me for a very long time.

1. Life Partner

I feel like I failed myself here.

Maybe if I had invested more time, more courage, or more attention into finding someone, I would have been married by now. Maybe I would have had a person beside me during the years when I needed companionship the most.

Now my parents are trying their best to find someone for me, and I know their intentions come from love. But there is a strange emptiness in the idea of marriage now.

When I needed a partner the most, I did not have one.

And now that I have learned how to live alone, I keep asking myself: what is the point?

Maybe this is not wisdom. Maybe it is just pain wearing the mask of practicality. But the thought is there, and I cannot pretend it is not.

2. Career

Since a very young age, I knew I wanted to build something.

Not just a job. Not just a salary. I wanted to build a business, maybe even an empire, especially in consumer electronics and other areas that fascinated me. I always felt business was the path that could fulfill my dreams.

But I did not come from wealth, so I was told to follow the traditional path.

Be safe. Study. Get a job. Earn steadily. Do not take unnecessary risks.

I understand why people said that. Survival teaches caution before ambition. But somewhere inside me, that desire never died.

Now I have many of the skills I once lacked. I have worked on multiple projects. Some are sitting unfinished in private Git repositories. Some are buried in my computer. Some were started with excitement and abandoned halfway when the fire faded.

And still, I keep wondering: what if one of them could make a real difference if I simply finished it?

This time, I am trying again. The project I am working on is related to job search, and something in my gut tells me it has potential.

Maybe I am wrong.

But maybe I am not.

Maybe I still have the instincts of a businessman waiting for the discipline to catch up.

3. Country

I love my country.

That love is not shallow. My family has served, and people from the current generation are also connected to the army. I was raised with a sense of duty, respect, and belonging.

But love does not mean blindness.

I have also felt deeply frustrated with how things work here. The quality of life often feels poor. Taxes are paid, but the return feels invisible. Housing is expensive. Vehicles are expensive. Food adulteration is real. Systems move slowly. Ordinary people suffer quietly.

And when I think of people who earn barely enough for one meal a day, I feel ashamed even to complain, because I know I am not poor. But that does not make the situation less painful. It only makes the contrast more unbearable.

I wanted to elevate my family’s economic class from this generation onward. One obvious path was to go to a country with a stronger currency, earn there, and move faster financially.

But life is not only money.

I cannot leave my parents alone so easily. They do not want me to go, and I understand why. Their love holds me here, even when my ambition pulls me elsewhere.

I am also tired of the system, not one party, not one leader, but the larger machinery that shapes everything. You can try to change what is within your limits, but the system is old, complicated, and dangerous in ways most people do not openly admit.

You can push against it.

But you also learn to survive inside it.

4. Health

I am in the worst shape of my life.

Every day, it feels like I am becoming a little worse. I do not feel motivated. I do not feel energetic. I do not feel like myself.

Maybe this sadness has fed my body. Maybe my body has fed this sadness. Maybe both are true.

But I have realized one thing clearly: in the end, you are responsible for yourself.

Every choice is still a choice, even when it is influenced by people, pain, fear, laziness, environment, or habit. Sometimes we choose directly. Sometimes we choose by avoiding a decision. But either way, life keeps counting the result.

I do not know what the future looks like.

But I know I have to do something soon.

Because if I continue like this, my body will not keep forgiving me forever.

5. Hope and Curiosity

I used to think hope was strength.

Now I am not so sure.

Hope, by itself, can become a comfortable lie. It can make you wait for a better day while doing nothing to create one. It can whisper, “Everything will be fine,” while your life quietly burns in the background.

No one is coming to save you.

That is a brutal sentence, but it is also freeing.

After a lot of introspection, I realized that hope is not what drives me.

Curiosity does.

The question “what if?” still has power over me.

What if I finish the project?

What if I become healthy again?

What if I build the business?

What if I stay alive long enough to see the version of myself I keep imagining?

Hope waits.

Curiosity walks toward the unknown and demands an answer.

And maybe that is what I need now, not blind hope, but the courage to find out.

6. The Darkest Thought

I have thought about ending my life multiple times.

I am not writing that for drama. I am writing it because it is true, and truth deserves clean language.

But after deep introspection, I found something important: if I end my life, that is the end of the story. The questions stop. The possibilities vanish. The future closes.

People who love me would cry. They would suffer. They would wonder what they missed, what they could have done, what words they should have spoken.

But beyond their pain, there is another thought that holds me back:

I would never get to know the answer to “what if I did not give up?”

What if the best chapter was still unwritten?

What if I was closer than I thought?

What if this version of me, the tired, angry, disappointed version, is not the final version?

I have been carrying these thoughts for years. I have tested as critically depressed more than once. But I also know this about myself: I am mentally stronger than many people realize.

I may be exhausted.

I may be disappointed.

I may be angry at life, the system, my choices, and my delays.

But I am still here.

To me, suicide feels like a cheat code in the game of life.

And I do not want to use that cheat code.

I want to finish the game properly.

Even if the level is brutal.

Even if the map is unclear.

Even if the player is tired.

7. Why This Blog?

Probably no one reads this blog.

And that is okay.

This post was not written in one mood or one night. It was written over multiple days so that it would not be just one temporary emotional storm pretending to be permanent truth.

I am putting it here because maybe one day, if I make things work the way I want, I will come back to this post.

Maybe I will read it again from a better place.

Maybe I will remember the frustration, the loneliness, the confusion, the anger, the pain.

Maybe I will thank this version of myself for not quitting.

Yesterday, NiKo won an ESL Major in CS2 after waiting ten long years. He said not to give up on dreams and to keep working.

Maybe that is all I can do right now.

Not magically heal.

Not suddenly become successful.

Not pretend everything is fine.

Just keep working.

Keep breathing.

Keep asking “what if?”

And keep walking toward the answer.