In Between Dreams

But are we all lost stars..
Trying to light up the dark?

Adam Levine

This year has been full of new places and new faces. I’ve been traveling, like usual, and meeting people whose lives look nothing like mine – teachers, dentists, people who work in tech, program managers. Different professions, different lifestyles, different struggles.

It’s beautiful, really, how much randomness there is to this thing called life. No two stories are the same. And yet, each of us lives inside a bubble -a small, self-contained world that feels like the world, until we peek outside.

Take my bubble. I work in tech, right in the middle of the AI wave. My days are filled with talk about AI Agents, agentic workflows, Claude Code – it feels like the center of the universe. But then I talk to a teacher friend who hasn’t used any of this in her daily work. From her view, the AI hype barely exists. My “huge” bubble suddenly looks tiny. It’s a good reminder: innovation takes time to travel. There’s still so much room to grow. What a time to be alive haha.

Yesterday, I was chatting with a dentist friend. She told me she’s so mentally and physically drained after work that creative hobbies are hard to keep up with. Makes sense. Dentists – well not just dentists, but everyone in the medical field – they can’t just say, “I’m not in the mood today” to a patient. Their job demands full presence, and a surprising dose of therapy-like connection with each person they treat. That takes a toll – both physical and mental on them!

In my world, 40 hours a week on paper often means bursts of focus between long stretches of flexibility. We work around deadlines, not fixed hours. Very different rhythms, equally valid. At one point, I worried I was overwhelming her with the 328,748 random things I did that day, but she laughed and said it was refreshing – a reminder that there’s life outside the routine.

And maybe that’s the point. Life is bigger than any bubble we live in. It’s meant to be explored, shared, expanded. Each encounter, each new place, each unfamiliar story has the power to stretch the walls of our bubble. The more we step outside of our comfort zones, the more we realize how connected yet beautifully diverse the world is. In the end, it’s all about the perspective we choose to carry into our daily lives – whether we see them as routine, or as part of a much bigger adventure!

If you notice you’re living in just one corner of it – step back. Look wider. The universe is HUGE, and we’re only specks of dust in it.

Adam Levine said it well – “Who are we? Just a speck of dust within the galaxy” haha. Take it easy – you got this!