The night I finished my final final, I came home and sat still for the first time in what felt like years. No deadlines pressing against my back, no assignments clawing at my mind. Just silence. A stillness that felt foreign, almost unnatural.

For so long, I had been moving, pushing forward with the kind of momentum that erases everything but the next step. When you compress a five-year journey into two, there is no time for reflection. Only motion. And yet, as I sat there that night, I found myself asking a question I had not prepared for:

What now?

It was a question that should have carried relief, but instead, it felt like a void. Because the truth is, I had built my life around pseudo-productivity, a relentless pursuit of something, anything, that felt like progress. It was easy to mistake motion for meaning. To fill every waking hour with work, with studying, with goals stacked on top of goals. But when the task was done, when the checkmark was finally inked in, I realized I had left no space for the things that existed outside of productivity.

And just like that, the cycle started again.

I’m now back in it, this time with the MCAT, another goal, another marker in time hurtling toward me at full speed. The test date looms closer every day, and once again, I find myself lost in the mechanics of preparation. Studying, reviewing, scheduling. This, too, will end. And when it does, I know what comes next. The same question, the same hollow pause before the next wave of movement carries me forward.

What now?

By then, I’ll be creeping toward 23. Doing all these things I don’t particularly want to do. Not because I lack direction, but because the road to what I do want, what I truly want, demands them. And maybe that’s just what life is: a sequence of necessary struggles, each one a bridge to something greater, something unseen.

For a long time, I believed happiness lived in the moments just beyond the next challenge. Once I finish this, once I get there, once this problem is solved—then I’ll be happy. But there is no “there.” There is no singular moment where everything aligns and joy permanently takes its seat at the table.

Life doesn’t work like that. Allah doesn’t work like that.

Because the second one problem is solved, another one steps into its place. There will always be something left unfinished, something demanding my attention. The nature of this world is that it does not stop needing from you. And so, if I keep waiting for happiness to arrive at a finish line, I’ll spend my whole life running toward something that does not exist.

And that is what I’m working on now.

Not just enduring the journey, but being happy inside of it. Not letting my joy be held hostage by the idea of completion. Because life is not the sum of the milestones I pass. It is the space between them. And if I don’t learn how to exist fully inside of that space, I will always be chasing something I can never catch.

Why must my road be so steep, while others walk paths that seem already paved? I know that every person faces trials of their own, that no life is untouched by struggle. But some struggles are met with hands to hold, with guidance passed down, with the quiet certainty that even in difficulty, they do not walk alone. There is a comfort in shared experience, in the connection that comes from moving through life alongside others who understand. Mine has been different—not harder, not unfair, just uniquely my own. A journey where I have had to create my own direction, where uncertainty itself has been my greatest teacher.

And perhaps that is the wisdom in it. That while ease may bring comfort, struggle brings depth. That while some inherit their way forward, I have learned to forge mine. And in that, there is something greater than ease—there is growth, resilience, and a faith that deepens with every unanswered question. Because even when I do not understand the plan, even when the path is unclear, I know that Allah has control over my affairs. And that is enough.