Raw Confide

They say being sober means being clear. But nobody tells you how loud your thoughts get when there’s nothing to mute them. There was a time I didn’t want clarity. Clarity showed me bills I couldn’t pay, dreams I hadn’t touched, and people I couldn’t save. So I learned how to stay “not sober.” Not always with alcohol. Sometimes with work. Sometimes with love. Sometimes with noise, scrolling, betting, hoping, planning, running. Anything that kept me from sitting with myself too long. Because when I sat still, I heard questions like: Is this really the life you wanted? Why are you tired if you haven’t even arrived? Who are you becoming? So I stayed drunk on movement. Drunk on distraction. Drunk on survival. I told myself, never be sober, because sober felt like failure. Sober felt like waiting. Sober felt like seeing. But one day I realized something heavy: If you’re never sober, you never heal. If you’re always numbing, you never grow. If you never face the silence, you never hear your o...

I used to think expansion was proof I was doing well. More things going on. More money moving. More responsibilities. Busy days felt like progress. But slowly, I started noticing something strange. The more I expanded, the more tired I became — not fulfilled, not proud — just drained. It wasn’t because I was lazy. It was because nothing was really settled. Money was moving, but I couldn’t tell where it rested. Plans were growing, but the foundation was shaky. I was stretching outward without holding the center steady. That’s when it hit me: Expanding without controlling the core resources only exhausts you. Growth without structure isn’t growth — it’s leakage. You’re not building, you’re just carrying weight. I learned that before you add more: you must know where your money sleeps where your energy goes where your time leaks and what actually feeds you back Otherwise, every new opportunity becomes another drain disguised as progress. Now, I move slower. I count more carefully. I prote...

There comes a point in life when you realize that not everything you feel needs to be acted on. Some people are in seasons that require silence, focus, and discipline. And even the purest affection can become noise if introduced at the wrong time. I’ve learned that caring for someone doesn’t always mean drawing closer. Sometimes it means knowing when to stand still. I’m watching someone rebuild herself through education — first year, new pressure, high expectations. Trying to remember study habits. Trying to prove something to herself. That kind of season is fragile. It doesn’t need extra weight, even if that weight comes wrapped as love. I’ve seen what happens when timing is ignored. When emotions compete with ambition. When support slowly turns into obligation. I don’t want to be that story again. This year has taught me something else too: life is not promised. I watched a young student who worked tirelessly just to stay in school leave this world unexpectedly. No long warning. No p...

Every day, three times a day, my brain gets tapped on the shoulder and asked the same exhausting question: what are we eating? Not what do you want to eat. Not what would bring joy. Just… what will keep you alive without draining the last bit of will you have left. It sounds small until you live it. Until you realize that deciding what to eat isn’t one decision — it’s thousands of tiny negotiations with your energy, your budget, your time, your mood. It’s opening the fridge and closing it again like it offended you. It’s scrolling through food pictures while feeling oddly irritated by all of them. It’s knowing you’re hungry but also knowing you’re tired of solving this problem. Some days, food feels less like nourishment and more like admin. You eat because you have to, not because you want to. You eat the same things on rotation because creativity costs energy you don’t have. And then you feel guilty for being tired of something so basic, because people say things like “at least you h...

Real success is slow. Painfully slow. Not the kind of slow that feels productive — the kind that makes you question if you’re wasting your life. It’s waking up every day, doing the work, and seeing nothing change. It’s putting in months of effort for results that look like accidents to outsiders. It’s being consistent long enough to feel invisible. Most people quit here. Because the truth is, success doesn’t arrive with fireworks. It creeps in quietly, after years of doubt, boredom, and restraint. After saying no to comfort more times than you can count. The discipline it takes to keep going when results are slow, that’s the part they skip in motivational speeches. They don’t talk about the loneliness of delayed progress. Or how embarrassing it feels to still be “building” when others are already celebrating. Or how discipline stops feeling inspiring and starts feeling like obligation. Real success demands patience without applause. Faith without evidence. Work without reassurance. And...

We talk about grief like it only comes with death. Like it only arrives when something stops breathing. But grief is everywhere. It’s in the job you never got but still wake up thinking about. It’s in the version of yourself that tried, failed, and never fully recovered. It’s in friendships that still exist, but no longer feel safe to lean on. Nobody tells you you’ll spend years mourning things that are still breathing. You grieve parents who are alive but no longer understand you. You grieve lovers who stayed, yet emotionally left. You grieve dreams that didn’t die — they just learned how to haunt you quietly. Some grief is loud. Most of it is silent. It shows up when you’re alone at night and remember who you were supposed to be. When you smile in public but feel behind in private. When life moves forward and you’re still holding the weight of what never happened. There’s no funeral for lost time. No sympathy card for delayed lives. No closure for becoming someone you didn’t plan to ...

Nobody tells men how lonely poverty is. Not the hunger — the silence. Your phone stops buzzing. Not because it’s bad — but because people stop checking. You didn’t offend anyone. You just became broke. You still have dreams.You still believe in your future. But “yet” is not enough for the world. You sit with people and feel invisible. You laugh, but your chest is heavy. The hardest part isn’t sleeping hungry. It’s waking up knowing nobody is waiting for you to win anymore. Still, you wake up. Still, you try. Because ambition doesn’t die quietly.

No one really talks about how common unhappiness is. People talk about success. They post laughter. They celebrate milestones. But unhappiness lives quietly, like background noise we’ve all learned to ignore. Every morning, Musa opened his shop before the sun fully rose. He greeted customers with a practiced smile, counted change carefully, and nodded when people asked, “How far?” He always answered, “We thank God.” It was the safest reply. The expected one. What he never said was that happiness came rarely — like rain in harmattan. Short, unexpected, and gone before he could stretch his hands to catch it. Most days were just survival. Not terrible enough to scream, not good enough to celebrate. Just days stacked on top of each other, heavy and identical. He wasn’t depressed, he told himself. Just tired. Just waiting. Just hoping something would eventually make sense. At night, he scrolled through his phone and saw people smiling into better lives. New jobs. New love. New beginnings. H...

I used to think survival was about money. Turns out it’s also about what you slowly give up. Some nights, after closing shop, after counting small notes and smaller wins, I’d sit alone and feel how narrow my life had become. No big talents. No loud success. Just effort stretched thin across days that looked the same. Paid sex entered my life like a shortcut I didn’t ask questions about. It fit the schedule. It fit the budget. It didn’t demand growth. I told myself it was harmless — a pressure release for a man still “on the way.” But something shifted. I stopped imagining a future that included anyone else. Relationships felt expensive — emotionally, financially, mentally. I began to value control over connection, certainty over risk. Paying meant I could leave unchanged. That’s the problem. When you fight life with small skills and small margins, you start protecting yourself from anything that might cost more than you can afford — including intimacy. You don’t collapse. You calcify. ...

Nobody teaches you what manhood feels like when nothing is working. They teach strength like it’s loud — muscles, money, confidence. But real masculinity, the one most men live with, is quiet. It’s waking up every day with weight on your chest and still putting on your shoes. I learned survival early. Not the heroic kind — the practical kind. Counting transport fare. Choosing which bill can wait. Smiling so people don’t smell fear on you. Carrying responsibility with no applause. Pressure comes from everywhere. Family expectations. Age mates doing better. Society asking questions you don’t have answers to. You’re told to be patient, but patience doesn’t pay rent. You’re told to hustle, but not every effort compounds. Obstacles don’t announce themselves. They show up as delays. As missed chances. As nights where you lie awake calculating how many mistakes you can afford before life hardens against you. Masculinity, in this space, becomes endurance. Not giving up. Not collapsing. Not bec...

I didn’t grow up dreaming of this version of myself. No child ever does. It started the way many hard decisions start — quietly, without drama. Rent was due. My phone kept buzzing with reminders I didn’t have answers for. I had worked, tried, waited, hoped. Hope doesn’t pay bills. When the offer came, it didn’t feel evil. It felt practical. Almost boring. Just numbers, time, and a body I already lived in. I told myself it was temporary. Just once. Just until things stabilized. The first time, I remember staring at the ceiling more than I remember the person. I wasn’t present. I wasn’t gone either. I was somewhere in between, dissociating enough to survive but aware enough to count the minutes. When it was over, I felt nothing — which scared me more than if I had felt shame. Money has a strange power. It doesn’t just buy things; it rearranges your values when you’re desperate enough. Each transaction made the next one easier, not because it hurt less, but because numbness grows fast whe...

I used to think confidence meant being fearless. Speaking first. Stepping forward without hesitation. Believing my boldness alone was enough. I didn’t realise I was skipping something important — awareness. I smiled where restraint was needed. I opened my heart where there was no invitation. I read attention into kindness and mistook curiosity for desire. And when reality corrected me, it did so loudly. That’s when I learned: Confidence without discernment is not strength — it’s exposure. Confidence without timing is not attractive — it’s uncomfortable. Confidence without self-awareness is ego running ahead of sense. Now, I move differently. Still confident. But observant. Still bold. But intentional. I don’t shrink — I choose. I don’t rush — I read the room. Because real confidence doesn’t chase validation. It knows when to pause. And it never leaves me embarrassed.

Lately, I don’t miss sex. I miss anticipation. I miss the way someone’s eyes would linger a second too long, like they were undressing a thought, not my body. I miss conversations that felt like foreplay — slow, intentional, dangerous. I want to be wanted in that quiet way again. The way that makes you sit up straighter. The way that makes you aware of your skin. I want someone who notices how my voice softens at night. Someone who reads between my words and smiles instead of asking questions. I don’t want rush. I don’t want noise. I want tension. I want connection. I want that moment where nothing has happened yet… but everything already feels inevitable.