To Smile
Today, as I was returning home along my usual route, something caught my attention. It wasn’t unfamiliar I’ve noticed it before, countless times but I never truly let it sink in. This time, though, I saw something more. The road I was traveling on wasn’t just a path, for it was a border.
On one side, there were people who had everything they could ever need. Their wealth spilled over like it could never run dry, yet their smiles often seemed forced, their laughter fake, a corporate masquerade. On the other side, people struggled with nothing but each other, fighting blood and sweat just to scrape together a meal. And yet, somehow, their faces held a raw, unfiltered joy, a joy born not from possessions, but from presence.
I stood there, wondering where I belonged. And then I realized: I was already exactly where I was meant to be. In the middle. The middle class. A strange in-between where I carried the weight of both worlds. I had enough to get by, but not enough to escape the grind. I had the smiles of simplicity and the exhaustion of endless striving. The fakeness of one world and the rawness of the other both lived in me.
And yet, as I looked ahead, I noticed something deep. No matter how different their journeys, all three roads : the wealthy, the struggling, and mine converged at one destination. It wasn’t success. It wasn’t perfection. It was something simpler.
Peace. Or maybe, just maybe, happiness
