You cannot build yourself in a rush
For the woman who is doing everything — and is never quite where she is.
Bianca4 min readPerspective
I think most of us fall down like this. Not in one big moment — slowly. We lose, and lose, and lose the ability to be present, task by task. And we do it for a good reason: we believe that finishing this task is what will finally give us room. More freedom for the things we actually want. More time to enjoy.
But there is a cycle here, and we don't see it for what it is. The next task never becomes the room. It becomes the next task.
Why am I doing so much and still don't feel fulfilled?
Because the experience of life is not happening in the next task. It is happening in this one. A woman can have goals, a journal, routines, books, plans, workouts, a business, children, a marriage — and still never actually be with herself. Washing dishes while living in the next five things. Playing with her child while thinking about work. Working while thinking about everything undone at home. Technically doing everything. Internally, always somewhere else.
You cannot build yourself while rushing past yourself.
The gift is the present
I don't mean that every moment has to be beautiful, or peaceful, or that you should romanticise a sink full of pans. I mean something simpler: this is the only moment you can actually live. You can be doing many things in a day — but if you are really present in each one, you find that the joy was there the whole time. And that is also how we grow. Not by adding another practice to a full day, but by living the day we already have, with a little curiosity, all the way in it.
Performing the task. The dishes are an obstacle between me and the next thing. My body is here; I am five steps ahead, and I arrive nowhere.
Experiencing the moment. The dishes are three minutes of my life, lived. Warm water, a tired body, a laugh from the other room. I arrive here.
This is why I have been quietly making things for you — pages with takeaways and small plans of action, things to work on yourself. And I keep coming back to one very simple idea: something to colour. A page you can colour any way you want, next to the words, not because colouring is deep, but because for those minutes your hands and your mind are in the same place. From there, it is much easier to open the journal and actually write.
Which task do you rush through most — and where are you, really, while you do it?
Not to judge it. Just to see the cycle for what it is.
You can do many things in a day. The joy is not in finishing them. It is in being there for each one.
The next time you catch yourself running — the next thing, and the next thing, and the next — stop where you are. Close your eyes. Open them. Look at what you have.
I do this at the sink, in the car, on the floor with the toys. The moment I notice I am already at the next task, I close my eyes for one breath. Then I open them and look around, slowly, for what I am thankful for. My son, playing in the other room. This house — a place that is ours, where I am comfortable. My hands, working. My family, healthy.
It takes less than a minute. And it changes my mind right away — not later, right there. The task is the same. I am not.
This is my own reflection, written from my days — not clinical advice. If the running never stops and it frightens you, that deserves a real conversation with someone who can hold it with you.Last updated August 29, 2026.
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