I Hope I Find the Truth While I'm Alive
“They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.” ― Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
Have you ever noticed how people start to feel undeserving when life is actually going well?
At least in my eyes, when someone hits a period of calm — whether it's a day, a week, or a season — they begin to wonder when the other shoe will drop. It’s like the moment things align, we brace for chaos. As if something good can't exist without something bad waiting behind it.
We start linking life’s ups and downs to something as vague as “luck.” I hear it all the time:
"My luck’s running out."
"They’re just a lucky person."
"It’s just not my luck lately."
But what does that truly mean? What has to happen to make someone officially “lucky”?
When did we start treating luck like it’s some cosmic currency—something we either earn or lose without really knowing how?
To me, luck has become the word we use to explain moments of ease — progress, flow, opportunity. When things feel aligned, when life opens up a little, it’s easy to say “I must be lucky.” I’ve done that, too. I’ve had those rare phases where everything seems to fall into place, and I think, maybe I don’t have to fight so hard this time. And just when I start to rest into that feeling, something inside me lingers, this won’t last. Like happiness, it is always on borrowed time.
Why do we fall into this habit? Why are we so quick to distrust peace?
Some of it comes from life experience. When you’ve been blindsided enough times, calm starts to feel suspicious. But I also think it’s conditioning. We’ve been taught, in subtle ways, that life is meant to swing. That joy is fleeting. That it’s dangerous to get too comfortable. So we internalise it. We convince ourselves that good things are temporary and that we shouldn’t ever fully lean into them — just in case.
The highs and lows will come; that’s inevitable. But maybe the truth isn’t found in tracking the pattern. Maybe it’s found in asking: What have I done to contribute to this moment of peace?
What if we stopped bracing for the loss and started nurturing what’s already here?
Because the second we start preparing for the worst, we disconnect from the present. We miss the softness of what’s actually going well because our minds are already five steps ahead, planning an escape route from something that hasn’t even happened.
Recently, I read about how the Stoics saw happiness. According to them, real happiness doesn’t come from luck or success — it comes from within. They believed that our suffering isn’t caused by what happens to us but by how we interpret what happens. When we tie our sense of peace to external forces, we become unstable. But when we build peace from the inside out — when we remain steady through the chaos and the calm — we touch something more lasting than happiness. We find truth.
We find ourselves.
The Stoics weren’t trying to cancel out emotions. They were learning how to ride the waves without drowning. And I think there’s something sacred in that. Something I want to live out.
So maybe the question isn’t, “Why is everything going so well?”
Maybe the real question is, “How can I stay grounded, no matter what comes next?”
Because chasing luck won’t ever save us. But learning to trust ourselves in the in-between — that might.
And if that’s not the truth… I hope I find it while I’m still alive.