“In the Midst of Everything Moving: What Do I Do Now?” | by Gregorius Yudha | Oct, 2025

The world rewards noise, but depth grows in silence.

The world doesn’t slow down anymore. Every morning starts with screens; messages, updates, opinions, more noise than thought. Everyone’s moving somewhere, doing something, posting about it, pretending to have it figured out. And in the middle of all that speed, I catch myself asking: What do I do now?

The truth is, I don’t always know. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe not knowing is the only honest place to start. Life today doesn’t give much room for silence. We’re expected to know who we are, where we’re going, and what we believe, even when most of us are still figuring out how to just be. But maybe that’s exactly where the truth hides, in the space between confusion and curiosity, in that pause when you stop pretending you have everything together.

Camus once said that the meaning of life is whatever stops you from killing yourself. It sounds harsh, but it’s real. What he meant is that meaning isn’t handed to us, it’s something we build through the act of living, through what we choose to notice, protect, or love. In a world obsessed with showing results, maybe the most meaningful thing you can do is to keep asking the question and not run from it.

We live in a generation that knows everything but understands very little. We can quote philosophers, analyze movies, or debate identity and purpose on social media, yet still lie awake at night feeling lost. We measure our worth in likes, compare our lives to edited stories, and call that connection. But behind the filters, we’re all just trying to feel something real again.

Maybe that’s what the question “What do I do now?” is really asking. It’s not about finding a perfect plan or a five-step strategy. It’s about learning how to exist without losing yourself in the noise. It’s about staying human in a world that feels automated. It’s about remembering that slowing down doesn’t mean falling behind. Heidegger said that to exist is to be aware of our own finiteness, to know we don’t have forever. But that awareness isn’t meant to paralyze us; it’s meant to wake us up. When you realize time is limited, suddenly every ordinary thing starts to matter more. The sound of rain on the window. A message from someone you miss. The way sunlight cuts across your room. None of it is small. It’s all life trying to remind you it’s still here.

So maybe the answer isn’t about doing something grand. Maybe it’s about being present enough to see what’s already in front of you, to feel the ground beneath your feet, to speak when it matters, to stay quiet when it doesn’t, to work on something that feels honest, not just impressive, and to care about people, not their opinions.

In a world where everyone is trying to prove something, you don’t have to. You can be the person who moves slower, not because you’re lost, but because you refuse to live on autopilot. You can be the one who listens longer, who chooses depth over speed, and who treats attention as the rare currency it really is.

Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” That means you won’t always know what you’re doing right now. But someday, looking back, you might realize that this confusion, this wandering, this in-between, wasn’t a waste of time. It was the soil where something real was growing.

So what do I do now? I live. Not perfectly. Not endlessly scrolling through other people’s lives. But truly. I wake up. I feel. I fail. I learn. I keep trying. I stop pretending I’m behind, because there’s no finish line. And I try to build a life that feels like mine.

Because at the end of the day, the world will keep moving. Trends will fade. Opinions will change. Algorithms will forget your name. But meaning, the kind that comes from awareness, kindness, and being present, will stay. So what do I do now? I stay awake to my own life. I keep showing up. I make peace with the uncertainty. And I live as if this right here, right now is exactly where I’m supposed to be.