There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from doing what you don’t believe in.

Not a dramatic rebellion, just a slow, quiet drift. I say yes when I want to say no. I keep moving when I want to pause. I follow the plan even when it no longer feels like mine.

On the outside, everything looks fine. I’m productive. I’m dependable. I’m doing the things I’m supposed to do. But inside, there’s friction. My mind is somewhere else, and my body keeps going without it.

It’s subtle at first—the missed spark, the lack of clarity, the sense that I’m living slightly to the left of myself. But over time, the gap grows. And the cost is real. I feel more tired than the work should make me. I feel a little distant from my own life.

I think part of me believed that alignment would arrive if I just kept going. That the feeling would catch up. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it gets quieter the longer I ignore it.

Lately, I’ve been asking smaller questions. Not “What’s my purpose?” but “What feels honest today?” Not “How do I fix everything?” but “What do I need to stop pretending?” And the answers aren’t big. They’re simple. A boundary. A rest. A small decision that lets my mind and my actions meet again.

I don’t need perfect alignment every day. I just need less self-betrayal. A little more truth in the small choices. A little less momentum for its own sake.

Maybe that’s what integrity is: not a grand statement, but a daily practice of bringing my mind and my actions back into the same room.