What Was I Thinking?

There was a time when his mind never rested.

Thoughts moved endlessly through it—plans, expectations, imagined futures, and carefully shaped outcomes. He thought about how life should unfold, how people should respond, and how effort should lead to reward. In his thoughts, everything made sense. In reality, almost nothing followed the path he imagined.

He was a boy who thought deeply—too deeply, some would say. Every situation became a possibility, every moment a prediction. If he worked hard, he expected results. If he cared, he expected understanding. If he stayed patient, he believed life would eventually meet him with fairness. But life, quietly and repeatedly, proved him wrong.

Things never happened the way he expected. The words he practiced in his head were never spoken. The chances he waited for never arrived on time. The efforts he poured his heart into often returned nothing but silence. Each mismatch between thought and reality left a mark. Slowly, disappointment became familiar, almost routine.

At first, he didn’t understand why it hurt so much. He blamed himself—his thinking, his nature, his sensitivity. Maybe he expected too much. Maybe he imagined too far ahead. With every unmet expectation, his confidence thinned. Still, he continued thinking, because stopping felt impossible.

Hardships followed him quietly. Expecting nothing became his shield against life’s constant, quiet disappointments.

Academic pressure, emotional confusion, broken expectations, and the loneliness of being misunderstood piled up over time. He suffered not only because things went wrong, but because he had already lived those moments perfectly in his mind—only to watch reality undo them.

By the age of sixteen, something inside him changed. It wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was a realization that arrived slowly but stayed firmly: nothing ever happens according to expectations. No matter how carefully he planned or how deeply he hoped, life would always choose its own direction.

This realization didn’t bring relief—it brought distance. He began to detach from hopeful thoughts. He stopped imagining good outcomes. Instead, his mind shifted toward what he didn’t want to happen. Failure. Loss. Embarrassment. Pain. Preparing for the worst felt safer than believing in the best.

Now in college, he carried this mindset with him.

Surrounded by people, he remained alone in thought. He attended lectures, submitted assignments, and moved through daily routines, but he kept his expectations buried deep. He no longer trusted his own imagination. It had disappointed him too many times.

He still thought a lot—but differently. Instead of dreaming, he analyzed. Instead of hoping, he guarded himself. His thoughts no longer chased happiness; they tried to avoid pain. Life became something to manage rather than something to look forward to.

And yet, the question never left him.

What was I thinking?

Was it wrong to expect? Was it foolish to believe that effort would be rewarded, that people would understand, that life would be fair? Or was the mistake simply expecting life to follow human logic?

He didn’t have the answers. Maybe he never would. But he knew this much: thinking too much had shaped his suffering, and expectations had deepened it. Still, those thoughts had also made him observant, reflective, and aware of life’s unpredictability.

This is not a story of giving up. It is the story of a boy who learned too early that life does not align with thoughts. A boy who now walks carefully, expecting little, thinking about what he does not want—because hoping for what he wants once hurt too deeply.

And so he moves forward, shaped by experience, guided by caution, and followed by a question that defines his journey:

What was I thinking?