a note from sahil · may 2026
I quit the rat race in March 2023. It took an ugly exit, a mental breakdown, for me to understand what success in the race actually was for me. It's simply your net worth divided by your trauma. The important question is if it's really worth it?
Sometimes, yes.
Most times, no.
But what it definitely does is take over your life and push anything else that's probably more beneficial away.
Quitting the race didn't fix things, though. The race had been the loudest force pulling me away from the people I love, but it wasn't the only one. There were quieter forces, and they were harder to fight. There still are. They all amount to the same thing. Loving people in adulthood is hard.
When you think about reaching out to a loved one you haven't spoken to in a while, ugly thoughts can tend to form.
They must be too busy.
I don't want to disturb them.
I haven't spoken to them in so long, it will feel weird.
I don't have anything to talk about. It will be awkward.
They haven't spoken to me in a long time. Maybe they don't like me.
What if they secretly hate me and are just pretending to be my friend?
If these feel familiar, I totally get you. I've been there and sometimes still find myself there.
However, allow me to play the devil's advocate here.
What if your friends hear a song and it makes them think immediately of you? What if when times are hard for them, they close their eyes and think of the moments of joy they shared with you? What if they choose to pray for you before they sleep? What if they would smile when they see your name pop up in their notifications?
What if, my friend.
What if.
For a long time, I would think of this feeling as a mountain placed in front of me. But the more I tried to pick my way through this mountain, I felt that it might be a mountain for others too. So I am now choosing to believe that maybe I've been assigned this particular mountain to show others it can be moved.
ember is what came out of that.
It's a small iOS app I built. People you care about become embers around a campfire on your phone. You tend them and they glow. You forget them and they cool. But they don't go out. They wait.
Your embers live only on your phone. No accounts. No cloud. No analytics. The App Store privacy label reads "Data Not Collected" because I didn't want to build a product that surveils the thing it is supposed to help you protect.
I open ember most days. Just to see who is dim.
Sometimes I send a text.
Sometimes I don't.
The noticing is what I needed.
There is a grief that builds from not noticing. I stopped trying to intellectualize it a while back but I figured most of us must grieve in secret. I certainly do.
I grieve the pace at which time seems to slip by, at the way life seemingly moves on even if yours has come to a stand-still. I grieve at the funerals of the many past versions of myself. I grieve seeing my family drift farther. I grieve dead friendships. I grieve taking the people we love for granted. These are quieter griefs I suppose, but probably the ones most of us carry.
It's so easy to lose oneself in such thoughts, which is why one needs a reminder that grief is an extant form of love. It exists to remind us that love was there. And in some form or the other, love is there. Still.
:)
sahil