Living Beyond Someday

 “Someday. The most dangerous word in the English language. It carries so much weight yet promises nothing.”

— Mahesh Mali»

It was another random Tuesday when the alarm on my phone went off… again.

I guess you could say it was inevitable, since the alarm hadn’t changed in over a year.

Monday through Friday.

5:45 a.m.

I rushed to hit the button.

“Yes, I’m up.”

Groggily.

Just like nearly every other morning.

Get up.

Coffee.

The only thing motivating me toward the bathroom to start the routine.

Get ready.

Head out.

Caffeine had become my companion on a journey we took every day.

More caffeine. Less sleep.

That had become the formula.

A typical day looked something like this: four hours of sleep and twenty hours of the grind.

Work.

Drive.

Calls.

Emails.

Deadlines.

New projects.

Old projects.

New issues.

Old issues.

Did I eat?

Did I finish that?

What am I forgetting?

And when the exhausting day was finally done, the brain drain began—an attempt to flush the system for a soft reset.

Music.

Reading.

Scrolling.

Games.

Anything to quiet the noise.

Every day.

Even weekends followed the same rhythm.

The priorities just shifted.

Family.

Chores.

Responsibilities.

Oil changes.

Groceries.

And often, more spending than necessary—because exhaustion has a way of making convenience feel worth any price.

How many days did I stay awake, wanting life to change in some drastic way?

How many times did I tell myself I would change this?

The answer was probably in the thousands.

It wasn’t doubt in the future I was trying to shape.

I believed in that future.

What I doubted was whether that future would come soon enough.

Soon enough to matter.

Soon enough to keep me from losing the last remaining pieces of myself before it ever arrived.

Like anyone, I should have understood what was happening.

The signs were there.

I lived them every single day.

But instead of confronting it, I turned to something familiar.

A simple word.

An innocent word.

A word we often interpret as hope.

Someday.

It sounds harmless.

Comforting, even.

Like a promise we make to ourselves that things will eventually get better.

That we’ll eventually change.

That we’ll eventually go.

That we’ll eventually become the version of ourselves we keep imagining.

But for many of us, someday becomes something else.

A bandage.

A temporary cover for the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

Something we use to soothe the discomfort of delay.

And the more we use it, the more bandages we add.

Over time, they stop feeling temporary.

They become normal.

Comfortable.

Numbing.

And then it stared back at me.

Buried in an old picture from a game I had started long ago.

A picture that would have meant almost nothing to anyone else.

Just another image in a sea of memories. Another forgotten moment while mindlessly scrolling through old photos, old screenshots, old fragments of time.

But this one felt different.

It represented something I had almost forgotten.

A someday that never happened.

Not abandoned.

Not intentionally discarded.

Just buried beneath a long line of successive somedays.

One postponed plan after another.

One delayed experience after another.

One more promise to myself pushed further into the future.

But there it was.

A reminder.

A chance to actually go.

A chance to actually see.

A chance to do.

To change.

To grow.

To explore.

And in that moment, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Urgency.

Not panic.

Clarity.

I needed it.

I needed something real.

Something meaningful.

Something that could break the cycle of routine, exhaustion, and postponement.

If nothing else, I needed something to break the Someday blues.

I stared at that picture for what felt like a full minute.

Just sitting there with a realization I could no longer ignore.

Someday had almost won.

That truth hit harder than I expected.

Not because life had fallen apart.

Not because I had failed.

But because I had quietly slipped into autopilot.

I was moving.

Working.

Planning.

Thinking about the future.

But doing very little to actively move toward the somedays I kept promising myself.

That was the uncomfortable truth.

I wasn’t standing still.

But I wasn’t really living either.

I was maintaining.

Existing somewhere between responsibility and routine.

And for the first time in a long time, I stopped and asked myself a different question.

How do I change this?

That question became a thought experiment.

Not about some fantasy life.

Not about running away from responsibilities.

Something practical.

Something real.

How could I actually change this?

I had plans.

I had done some research.

I already had some knowledge of what I wanted to do.

But suddenly, that wasn’t enough.

I wanted more.

More experience.

More meaning.

More life.

More intention.

And that need for more eventually grew into this story.

I knew there was enough money.

Not unlimited money.

Not luxury money.

But enough.

Enough to stop pretending that finances were the only thing standing in the way.

Over time, I had built a soft cushion.

Enough for more than just a trip.

Enough to invest in something meaningful.

That realization forced another uncomfortable truth to the surface.

If money wasn’t the biggest obstacle anymore… what was?

The answer was harder to admit.

It wasn’t money.

It was friction.

Planning. Complexity. Decision fatigue. Mental overload.

The exhausting space between wanting something and actually doing something.

That’s where this experiment really began.

This wasn’t just about taking a trip.

It became something bigger.

An experiment involving personal goals. Bucket lists. Adventure. Growth.

And, unexpectedly, a frustratingly efficient piece of task-handling software with a strange talent for helping solve problems… and occasionally making them more complicated.

ChatGPT became part planning assistant, part research partner, part sounding board.

At times incredibly useful.

At times hilariously unhelpful.

But in an odd way, that became part of the experience.

Because this journey wasn’t just about reaching destinations.

It was about figuring out how to break through the invisible barriers that keep so many of us stuck.

Not because we lack dreams.

Not because we lack resources.

But because somewhere between intention and action, we get overwhelmed.

And overwhelmed people tend to delay.

Delay turns into someday.

And someday has a dangerous habit of overstaying its welcome.

I’ve come to believe that planned chaos is one of the best ways to approach life.

Not reckless chaos.

Not rigid planning.

Something in between.

Enough planning to remove the excuses.

Enough flexibility to welcome the unexpected.

The itinerary would change.

Weather would change.

Flights would change.

Our energy would change.

Even our destinations would change.

But the goal wasn’t to control every moment.

It was to create enough structure that life had room to surprise us.

Maybe that’s true of more than travel.

Maybe the best experiences aren’t found in perfect plans, but in the willingness to step beyond someday and trust yourself enough to adapt along the way.