Striving Towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

There’s a particular ache in watching joy arrive only to be quietly escorted out by guilt, as though happiness were never meant to overstay its welcome. I used to imagine a life measured in miles traveled — new horizons, foreign light, the ache of distance closing. Instead, I find myself measuring it in a different currency altogether: the heavy, recurring mileage of guilt, paid in installments I never agreed to. Maybe this is what growing older quietly teaches us — that some journeys never leave the inside of your chest, and you learn to carry them anyway.