He was dreaming of something just before waking up.
In the dream, he had reached somewhere.
Where, exactly, wasn't clear—
But he had something in his hands.
The moment he woke, his hands were empty.
He looked at his hands for a while.
He and his empty hands were well-acquainted by now.
Today, there was a different kind of sound inside the house.
Voices could be heard from the drawing room.
He peeked through the crack in the door—
His uncle had arrived.
His uncle was the kind of person
Who never said anything directly,
But whose words were always full of calculations.
He went out and offered his greetings.
His uncle looked at him, nodded, and smiled.
"What's the news? What are you doing these days?"
The question was very normal.
But there was no short answer to this question.
He said,
"I'm trying."
These two words were his shield now.
To say nothing would be a lie;
To say more would require explanations.
His uncle set down the teacup and said,
"Everyone tries. You have to grab onto something eventually."
The sentence was soft.
But it carried weight inside.
He nodded and remained silent.
Mother came out of the kitchen and changed the subject.
The conversation moved on.
But the question didn't.
It stayed right there, inside his head.
When his uncle left in the afternoon, the house went quiet again.
But this silence wasn't like the old one.
He could sense—
His father was speaking less.
His mother was avoiding eye contact.
No one was blaming him.
No one was insulting him.
Yet, an invisible pressure had spread through the house.
He entered his room and closed the door.
Today, he didn't want to go out.
He opened his phone.
As soon as he logged onto social media,
A photo appeared.
An old school friend.
A new job.
A smiling picture.
Many comments below—
"Proud of you!"
"Deserved!"
He stared at the photo for a while.
His friend wasn't a bad person.
He didn't even want to be envious.
Yet, there was a slight tug in his chest.
He put the phone down.
He didn't want to compare himself.
But comparison has a way of sitting down beside you uninvited.
He stood by the window.
He saw a boy across the street—
Bag on his shoulder, walking in a hurry.
Maybe a class.
Maybe a job.
Maybe that place
Where he hasn't been able to reach yet.
Suddenly, it occurred to him—
Maybe the problem isn't money.
The problem is position.
Where is he standing right now?
At the beginning?
Midway?
Or has he not even stepped onto the path yet?
This is the question that exhausts him.
In the evening, his father stood at the door.
After a moment of silence, he asked,
"Did you look for anything?"
There was no anger in his voice.
No accusation.
Only a kind of expectation
That existed beyond words.
He nodded and said,
"I'm looking."
Father said nothing more.
He walked away.
The conversation lasted only a few seconds.
But it lingered inside him for a long time.
He knows—
His family understands him.
But understanding doesn't mean
They don't worry.
At dinner, very little was said at the table.
The sound of spoons was louder than the voices.
He suddenly felt—
He isn't just fighting for himself.
He wants, one day,
To sit at this table
And eat without having to avoid anyone's eyes.
After finishing his meal, he went to his room and took out his notebook.
It took him a little longer to sit down and write today.
Holding the pen, he thought—
What was the heaviest moment of the day?
His uncle's question?
His friend's photo?
His father's short sentence?
No.
The heaviest thing was—
The comparison within himself.
He wrote—
"Today I realized,
The success of others doesn't break me.
My own position breaks me."
He fell silent after reading the line.
He had never admitted this to himself before.
He had always said,
"I am not jealous of anyone."
But today he understood—
Even without jealousy,
One cannot escape the pressure of comparison.
Late at night, he looked in the mirror.
There was tiredness in his eyes today.
But one thing was clear—
He doesn't want to run away.
He knows,
There is only one way out of this pressure—
To move forward, even if slowly.
Maybe tomorrow he will try again.
Maybe tomorrow he will hear another "Not now."
But today he learned one thing—
You cannot stop the comparison,
But you can choose not to stop moving.
He will not stop.
Before sleeping, he wrote the final line—
"I am behind,
But I haven't stopped."
He closed the notebook.
The room was dark.
But today, the darkness didn't swallow him whole.
Because he knows—
As long as there is pressure,
He is still in the game.
That closing thought—that the presence of pressure means you're still "in the game"—is a powerful shift in perspective. It turns a burden into a sign of life.