Lately I’ve been sitting with a strange, quiet thought.
I was born and raised in North India. And on most days, life is… fine. Stable. Predictable. Moving forward in the way it’s supposed to.
But sometimes, out of nowhere, I start wondering—
What if I had been born somewhere else?
In the Northeast. Or in a different country altogether.
A different language in my mouth. A different rhythm to daily life. Different festivals, different food, different streets I would call “normal.”
Different people shaping me.
Different friends. Different struggles.
A completely different personality.
A completely different me.
And then it hits me in a way that’s hard to explain—
This is the only version of life I get.
Not in a dramatic way. Just a quiet realization that feels heavier the longer you sit with it.
We grow up thinking life is about choices.
Study this. Work here. Marry or don’t. Move cities. Build something.
But those are choices within a very small box.
The bigger things—where you’re born, who you’re surrounded by, the environment that shapes your thinking—those are already decided.
And they define so much of who you become.
Sometimes it feels like standing in an ice cream shop with infinite flavours… but you’re allowed to taste only one, and you don’t even get to choose it.
There are entire versions of me that will never exist:
- The version who grew up in the Northeast, with a completely different culture and way of seeing the world
- The version who speaks a different language and thinks in a completely different way
- The version who met people I’ll never meet, lived stories I’ll never even hear about
And I think what I’m feeling isn’t exactly FOMO.
It’s something quieter. Heavier.
Almost like… grief.
Grief for lives not lived.
For experiences I’ll never have.
For people I’ll never know.
Being an introvert, I sometimes feel like the only way to stretch my life a little is through other people—listening to their stories, understanding how differently life can unfold.
But then reality kicks in—work, responsibilities, the busyness of daily life.
Making new friends itself starts feeling like effort.
And the world is so vast… even if I try, it feels like I’ll only ever scratch the surface.
No matter what I do, I’ll miss almost everything.
Almost every place. Almost every person. Almost every version of life.
And that thought is both humbling and unsettling at the same time.
I don’t know if there’s a solution to this feeling. Maybe there isn’t.
Maybe part of growing older is learning to sit with this—
that life is not about living all lives, but somehow making peace with just one.
Still, I’m curious—
Do others feel this too?
And if you do… how do you carry it?