This silent suffering is a ticking time bomb wearing the mask of masculinity.

He was the life of every party, the one always cracking jokes, the friend everyone described as “solid.” A week after his funeral, the group chat was still haunted by silence. No one knew he was struggling. He never said a word.

His last message was a meme. His last act was ending his life. And he wasn’t the only one.

It’s frightening how we all know this isn’t an isolated tragedy.

This is a story that rings like an echo in countless stories of men bound by loyalty, yet divided by silence.

You might have come across this statistic that states men die by suicide nearly twice as often as women worldwide. And this is not because they lack strength, but because society silences them until silence becomes irreversible.

They’re taught to joke instead of cry. To brush it off instead of speak up. To hold it in, even when it’s killing them.

This reality reveals a stark truth: Your best man will take a bullet for you, offer up a kidney without blinking. But ask him to talk about how he feels… Suddenly, the room goes quiet.

This is the paradox of male friendships. The love runs deep but the language of that love is insults, sarcasm, and banter.

Why?
Why do so many men bottle up their emotions, deflect with humor, or implode in private? Maybe the answer lies in a mix of biology, psychology, and generations of social conditioning.

The Biology (and Society) Behind It All

To understand how we got here, we might first look to biology. Research shows that male and female brains process emotions differently. Men have a smaller prefrontal cortex compared to women, which influences emotional regulation.

Testosterone also plays a role in reducing the intensity of emotional responses, making men naturally more inclined to suppress rather than express. It is linked to risk-taking behavior, dominance, and aggression.

Evolutionarily, this made sense. Our ancestors needed protectors, hunters, fighters. Men were, in some ways, biologically predisposed for survival, to be less overtly emotionally expressive and more action-oriented.

But we’re not fighting sabertooth tigers anymore. And while biology offers a starting point, it’s crucial to remember that we are not merely slaves to our hormones.

Society and culture are powerful sculptors, intensely shaping how these predispositions are expressed, encouraged, or suppressed. Studies have found that boys and girls experience similar levels of emotional intensity as children, but by adolescence, boys exhibit less outward emotional expression. This shift isn’t because they stop feeling emotions, but rather because they learn that expressing them has social consequences.

We mistake silent suffering for strength, but it’s really society’s way of keeping men in emotional solitary confinement. We’re dealing with job loss, heartbreak, loneliness, identity crises, and the overwhelming weight of being “a man” in a world that often doesn’t allow him to bend.

The wiring hasn’t changed much. But the world, and our understanding of it, has. And the result of this?? An emotional bottleneck. It’s just pressure building and building with nowhere safe to go.

Raised to Be Tough, Not Tender

From the moment a boy cries, he’s told, “Don’t cry like a girl.” He’s taught that vulnerability is weakness. That sharing is soft. That asking for help is a defeat. And by the time he becomes a man, he’s mastered the art of emotional silence.

Boys learn fast: “If you show emotion, then the pack will descend.” The word “gay” itself, stripped of its meaning, becomes a slur to police their tenderness. If you show too much care, too much softness, you’re suddenly seen as less of a man.

This isn’t just fathers; mothers too, enforce these lessons. They push sons toward ‘strength,’ sanding down their edges to fit society’s mold. It rarely has anything to do with cruelty, rather, it’s generations of inherited scripts: ‘Don’t cry. Don’t flinch. Don’t need.’ 

This mocking isn’t harmless. This is textbook emotional policing. But what fuels this policing? It’s more than just “boys being boys.” If you dig deeper, you’ll find society’s allergic reaction to male intimacy. Even straight men internalize this homophobia, then wield it like a cudgel against vulnerability. This fear ensures that any deep emotional expression between men becomes suspect, forcing interactions into a narrow, “acceptable” band of masculine behavior.

Men are constantly on guard, performing a rigid version of masculinity even with those they should trust most.

It’s the unspoken rulebook of male friendships: never be too open, never feel too much.

And the irony is that these are often the same friends who would stand by you through hell but can’t sit with you in your sadness, precisely because the rulebook forbids it.

He’s fine. He’s dying inside.

In therapy, we often trace the roots of depression, addiction, even aggression in men back to one thing: unexpressed emotion. Decades of pain with no outlet.

And the worst part is that this toll extends beyond mental health. Chronic, unexpressed stress corrodes arteries and cripples immune defenses. So in other words, emotional suppression doesn’t just harm mental health, but it also chips away at the body.

Men die earlier, in part, because their stress has no outlet. Often, the only “acceptable” emotion for men to display is anger- a dangerous conduit for unexpressed sadness, fear, or shame. Furthermore, the inability for men to be vulnerable makes it difficult for them to truly receive love and support, even when it is offered. And all this does is continue perpetuating a cycle of profound isolation.

The Truth About “Toxic Masculinity”

Let’s get one thing straight: masculinity itself is not the enemy. The internet has, in part, diluted the concept of toxic masculinity, unfairly dragging basic male traits.

What toxic masculinity does is weaponize this silent suffering, and call it ‘resilience’; all the while ignoring its fatal consequences.

Emotional Orphans: The Silent Suffering of Men

Many men become emotional orphans in their own lives. Surrounded by people, but starving for connection. And we often talk about how emotionally unavailable men affect their partners. But what about their friends? Their kids? Their brothers?

When men don’t know how to emotionally show up, they become strangers to the people closest to them. Their romantic partners often become unwilling sole emotional custodians, shouldering the entire weight of their partner’s unexpressed inner world. A burden that healthy friendships are meant to help share.

This outsourcing of emotional labor can lead to resentment, burnout, and ultimately, relationship breakdowns, leaving men feeling even more adrift. They become absent in presence. And over time, even their most loyal friendships start to feel like hollow performances, shadowed by an unspoken competition or a fear of judgment that keeps true connection at bay.

Brotherhood Without The Silent Suffering

Because sometimes, the pressure to offer solutions is just another way we avoid sitting with uncomfortable feelings – our own, or someone else’s.

Unlearning the Silence

If you’re a man reading this maybe it’s time to check in on your friends. Not just with a “Yo, what’s up,” but with an “Are you really okay?” And if you’re someone who loves a man, your partner, your brother, your father, give them the space to talk. Don’t judge how or when they do. But just let them know it’s safe.

Breaking these cycles isn’t easy. It requires conscious effort:

• Ask your friend how he’s really doing and wait for the pause.
• Don’t fix. Just be there. Sometimes, presence is the only answer.
• Share something real from your own life. Vulnerability breeds safety.
• Challenge the jokes that cut too deep. You can love someone and still call them out.
• And yes, it might feel awkward at first. Do it anyway. That’s how change begins.

Male friendships don’t have to be built on silence. Emotional strength isn’t about pretending nothing affects you, it’s about facing what does and that doesn’t make you any less strong. In fact, this is the very thing that makes you whole.

Because behind every joke, every insult, every “I’m fine,” there might be a weight they’ve carried for far too long. And they’re waiting, perhaps desperately, for permission to finally set it down.

The post Man Up. Shut Up. Break Down: The Deadly Cost of Being ‘One of the Guys’ first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

You’ve seen it. Cinematic montages of morning coffee captioned like movie scripts, dramatic retellings about life’s mundane events, plot twists, and people stepping into their “main character era” like they just walked onto a film set. The idea is simple- romanticize your life, see yourself as the protagonist, and bask in the spotlight of your own narrative.

Sounds empowering, right? Well, not always.

What is Main Character Syndrome, anyway?

Main Character Syndrome (MCS) isn’t an official psychological diagnosis, but it’s definitely a cultural moment. It’s the tendency to see yourself as the star of the show; where everything that happens is part of your storyline, and everyone else is just supporting characters, obviously!

A little self-importance is natural. Heck, it’s even necessary, but when does it go too far? In my own understanding, perhaps it’s when your personal story arc becomes the story.

Reality with a Filter

Social media didn’t just encourage MCS, it put it in 4K resolution and everyone wanted social media to be the director of their lives. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have turned everyday existence into a performance that encourage people to document their lives like a carefully curated film reel.

It was no longer about just about sharing life’s moments, it became so much about crafting a narrative and making sure they look like something straight out of an A24 film, complete with aesthetic coffee shots, dramatic text overlays, and indie soundtrack-worthy captions.

But constantly curating your life to fit a storyline can wrap self-perception. You just end up spending too much time scripting your life, and before you know it, you are living for the aesthetic, not the experience.

When we’re too focused on being the main character, it’s easy to forget that everyone else is living an equally complicated, messy, meaningful lives too.

Main Character Energy Gets Lonely

There’s nothing wrong with adding a little flair to your life; after all, perspective shapes experience. And tbh, romanticizing your life does have the potential be all fun and games. You might even manage to convince yourself of this, but …

when everything becomes content, conversations will turn into dialogue rehearsals, experiences become photo ops, and relationships can feel transactional. The pressure to constantly be someone funny, wise, effortlessly cool, and whatever else is trending, can leave little room for just being.

When you’re always trying to fit your life into an Instagrammable narrative, the mundane parts of existence (which, let’s be honest, is most of life) start feeling unbearable.

Everyone knows that not every moment is a perfect, slow-motion, sun-drenched scene. Real life isn’t always cinematic. Sometimes it’s awkward, uneventful, or downright boring. Sometimes you spill coffee down your shirt five minutes into the day.

And that’s okay.

How to Be the Main Character Without Losing the Plot

Social media rewards a carefully curated version of authenticity, but true connection comes from embracing the unfiltered parts of life too. Studies have even linked excessive social media use to higher levels of narcissism and decreased empathy. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that shows up when people start treating others as background characters instead of fully realized humans with their own emotions.

When your desire to be the protagonist disconnects you from reality, or makes real-life relationships feel secondary to your own narrative, it might be time to take a step back. Because the best protagonists evolve, stay grounded, and (shockingly) care about others too.

You are the main character in your own life, but you’re not the only main character.

So, how do we embrace self-romanticization without getting lost in our own echo chamber?

• Acknowledge other storylines. Every person you meet has their own plot twists, struggles, and triumphs. Don’t just play a role in their lives, actually engage with them.
• Drop the script. Let go of the performance because not everything needs a highlight reel.
• Be real, not just relatable. If you’re having a deep conversation with a friend, maybe don’t pause to tweet about it.
• Appreciate the unedited version of life. Not every experience has to be aesthetic or romanticized. Sometimes, a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.

At The End Of The Day…

There’s nothing wrong with embracing your main character energy now and then. But the real magic happens when we recognize that we’re all protagonists in a shared world, with overlapping narratives, unexpected plot twists, and co-stars worth listening to.

Real connection is about embracing life in all its unfiltered, unedited moments. So go ahead and romanticize your life, capture the aesthetic, but don’t forget that sometimes the best scenes unfold when no one’s watching.

The post Dear Main Character, You’re Not the Only One in the Story first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

And no one knew.

Maybe you feel it too.

Overstimulated, under-supported

That’s the thing- emotionally intelligent people also struggle to name their own pain. Even those trained in the art of listening- therapists, helpers, healers – get lost in their own noise.

You still show up, though. You get to work. You soften your voice, make space for their hurt, gently fit their pieces together while your own feel scattered across a hundred places.

Drowning Without a Sound

Sometimes the anxiety comes like a silent flood.
No warning, no noise, not dramatic.
Just a slow, steady drowning.

You might even look calm to everyone around you. But inside, your body is screaming in a language no one else seems to hear. The kind of scream that doesn’t make a sound because you don’t have the words to explain it.
Or the energy.
Or the permission.

When the panic doesn’t subside, I search for unfamiliarity. For new sensations, unlikely corners, unfamiliar textures. Anything to remind me I’m still here, still moving, still outside the spiral. Anything to distract me from the ache I couldn’t name.

And you don’t want pity. You don’t want a crisis hotline. You don’t want to talk about it. Not with a friend. Not with a therapist. Because how do you explain something you don’t understand?

Running on Empty

It’s a weird kind of burnout you know, the emotional kind. Not the “I’ve been working 16-hour days” kind, but the “I don’t have the capacity to feel another thing” kind.

You want to feel less.
But also, you want to feel something.

You want to rest.
But there’s always something that needs doing.

The world doesn’t stop. Deadlines don’t care.
And yet your brain is on fire.

So I do. I show up. I fix lives. I put the puzzle pieces together for other people, even when I feel like I’ve misplaced my own.

Overflowing, But Not Crumbling

If any of this sounds familiar, I just want to say, your body is begging for rest. Not sleep. But stillness. Safety. A break from having to be the one who always understands. Always absorbs. Always adapts.

You might not have words for what you’re feeling.
But you’re not the only one feeling it.

And maybe no one will fully understand. Maybe they’ll never quite get what you mean when you say “I’m fine” with a smile that feels like betrayal.
But someone out there reading this, breathing quietly like you are, gets it.

And that’s something.
That’s not everything.
But it’s something.

This isn’t a confession. It’s a reminder.

A reminder that those who carry others often carry their own weight in silence. That even the ones who seem composed can be cracking inside. Especially for people who are used to being the caregivers, the listeners, the problem-solvers, the empaths- we get so good at helping others through their storms, we often forget to notice when we’re drowning too.

So here I am, sitting in an unfamiliar study room, fingers hovering over the keys, surrounded by quiet strangers.

And then I’ll wake up tomorrow. I’ll do it all again.
I just hope someone sees the version of me that didn’t make it to the room.

The post I’m Fine (And Other Lies I Tell) first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

What Is Selective Morality? The Psychology Behind Convenient Ethics

The dissonance is deafening. We talk a big game about values but only until those values come home for dinner.

This isn’t about hypocrisy. This isn’t about judging you. It’s about understanding why we do this and how our minds work. And why being morally consistent is much, much harder when love, guilt, tradition, and identity are in the mix.

Moral at a Distance

Somehow it’s surprisingly easy to call out people we don’t know. You can comment, block, rage-cry in a tweet thread and sleep peacefully. But when it’s your best friend who cheated on their partner, or your uncle who said something offensive at a family gathering, suddenly it’s “not my place.” This common justification highlights how selective morality operates in personal relationships.

Psychologist Albert Bandura coined the term moral disengagement to describe how people rationalize behavior that contradicts their personal ethics. We tell ourselves it’s “different” when it’s someone we love. That they’re not a bad person. That they’re “just going through a phase.” We convince ourselves that silence is protection.

When Blood Dilutes Ethics: Selective Morality Within Families

A man steals from an old woman. It’s on the news. We’re furious. We repost, we write angry captions, we say “justice must be served.” We shame not just the thief, but his family, his friends, anyone remotely related.

But now imagine it’s your sister.

She didn’t rob anyone, but she did take something intangible. Maybe she manipulated a coworker. Gaslit a friend. Pulled strings at work. It’s still harm. And the moment someone brings it up, your defense kicks in.

You go from being a critic to their crisis manager like a PR agent for the behavior you once condemned.

This is where cognitive dissonance hits the hardest. When your actions and beliefs don’t line up, your brain scrambles to resolve the tension caused by this selective morality, and often, the easiest way to ease the tension is to rewrite the narrative. Downplay the wrongdoing. Focus on the “good parts” of the person.

You can call this in-group bias – our tendency to protect our own- the closer they are to us, the harder it becomes to see them objectively. And now, you’ve got a family WhatsApp group full of silence and saved face.

Selective Outrage: Who Gets Held Accountable?

We hold public figures to higher moral standards than we hold our families. And ourselves.

You’ll cancel a celebrity for a problematic tweet from 2008, but excuse your cousin’s slurs at the dinner table because “that’s just how he talks.” You’ll call your coworker out for body-shaming, but stay silent when your aunt comments on your niece’s weight in front of everyone.

And again, it’s not because you’re a bad person. It’s because confronting the people we love risks more than just being uncomfortable. It risks closeness. And for many of us, especially in collectivist cultures, family harmony > personal values.

The Unspoken Rulebook: Family First, Morals Later

Somewhere along the way, we were taught not to “air dirty laundry.” That family matters more than truth. That blood comes before boundaries. Even when it means protecting someone who needs to be corrected.

Ethics is not about being perfect. It’s about being honest- with ourselves and with the world. Because at the end of the day, the hardest battles are not the ones we fight in the streets but the ones we fight inside our own homes.

The Psychology Behind Selective Morality

When we see a wrong committed by someone we don’t know, we evaluate it using the cold cognition part of our brain. Logic, facts, right vs. wrong. But when the same thing is done by someone we love, it activates hot cognition and which is the emotion-driven decision-making.

Research on moral licensing also show that when people feel morally validated in one area (“I stood up for this one issue!”), they tend to give themselves a pass in other areas (“So I can let this one slide.”), a cognitive loophole enabling selective morality. You stood up for the environment at work so you let your dad’s plastic dumping slide.

It all adds up.

Combine that with years of social conditioning (be loyal to your tribe, respect elders no matter what), and you’ve got a recipe for moral silence.

Does Empathy Justify Selective Morality?

Compassion is important. Nuance is necessary. But we can’t keep confusing empathy with avoidance.

And no, confronting someone doesn’t mean cutting them off. Sometimes, love can look like difficult conversations.

Now That We Know, What’s Next?

There’s no easy answer. This blog won’t end with a 3-step plan to fix your family’s moral inconsistencies. (You’d ignore it anyway. We all would.)

But maybe the next time someone you care about messes up, you won’t rush to sweep it under the rug. Maybe you’ll sit with the discomfort and ask yourself, “If I didn’t know this person, how would I react? And what does it say about me if I only act when it’s easy?”

Morality isn’t convenient. That’s what makes it moral.

The real test of our values isn’t what we scream in public. It’s not the silence in courtrooms or protests. It’s what we whisper at the dinner table- where truth gets served cold, or not at all.

The post Selective Morality 101: Why We Cancel Celebrities, Not Cousins first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

There’s a kind of grief we don’t talk about enough. And it’s the grief of unlived lives, of who we could have been. It lingers in the spaces between our choices, in the roads we never took, in the lives we imagined but didn’t live.

It sneaks up on you in small moments like when you scroll past someone living the life you once dreamed of, when an old ambition resurfaces out of nowhere, when you wonder, what if? It’s not exactly regret but something softer, and it’s heavy nonetheless. It’s a mix of nostalgia, curiosity, and sometimes, a little bit of sadness.

And this grief is not just personal, but cultural too. A lot of our choices never felt entirely our own. We came of age in a time that preached independence and ambition, especially for women. We were told we could be anything, do anything but in the background, tradition kept whispering reminders of what we should be. Marriage, family, stability- those age-old benchmarks that have long defined a woman’s worth. So while we reached for more, we also carried the weight of expectations that inadvertently shaped our decisions.

By mid to late 20s, we’re expected to have a steady job, an income, and a life that looks put together. But what if getting there meant giving up parts of ourselves? What if, in choosing the practical path, we had to let go of the dreams we once nurtured?

And if so, how do we live with this grief? More importantly, how do we stop mourning the lives we didn’t live and start embracing the one we have?

The ‘Job by 26’ Rule

Remember those kids in school who swore they’d be astronauts, artists, or world-famous chefs? Fast forward a decade or two, and most of them (like us) are just trying to figure out how to reply to emails without having an existential crisis.

Maybe they wanted to be an artist but ended up in a government job because you can’t eat dreams.

Maybe they swore they’d leave town, yet here they are, running the family business.

And maybe you too see yourself in them.

Most of us didn’t choose our careers out of passion. We chose them out of necessity. And now, at 28, still figuring things out feels heavier than ever, especially in a world where every teenager seems to already own a startup.

Many of us weren’t just chasing a career, we were stepping into roles as family breadwinners, cultural torchbearers, and proof of success for our parents’ sacrifices. The weight of responsibility often shaped our choices before we even realized it.

The Psychology Behind the Grief of Unlived Lives

This longing for a parallel life is more than just a passing thought, it has deep psychological roots.

The “What If” Loop: Our Brain’s Obsession with Alternate Endings

Psychologists call this counterfactual thinking. Our brain’s tendency to replay past decisions and imagine different outcomes. It’s a survival mechanism. If we analyze our past mistakes, we might avoid similar ones in the future. But when this becomes obsessive, it can trap us in a cycle of regret, making us feel like we failed simply because we didn’t choose a different path.

Neuroscience also backs this up with studies that show how the medial prefrontal cortex (a region linked to self-reflection), lights up when we think about our past choices. The more emotional the memory, the stronger the brain’s response. That’s why we feel the deepest regret when our identity – our careers, relationships, or personal goals- is on the line.

Erik Erikson’s Theory

Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development explain why this grief intensifies at different life stages.

• In our 20s and 30s (Intimacy vs. Isolation), we’re making major life decisions like career, relationships, independence. This is also the time when regret creeps in because we compare ourselves to peers who “figured it out” faster or seem more successful.
• By middle age (Generativity vs. Stagnation), we start questioning our impact. Did we build something meaningful? Did we waste time? This is where people feel the strongest pull toward “what could have been.”
• In old age (Integrity vs. Despair), all those bottled-up regrets can start to bubble over and not in a poetic, healing way. You know that one grandpa on the block who grumbles at kids for existing? Or the aunty who always looks like life personally offended her? We joke and call them hags or grumps, but honestly that could be any of us if we don’t make peace with the “what ifs.” That kind of cynicism doesn’t just come from age but are the results of emotional leftovers from a life full of should-haves and could-haves, microwaved over and over till it sours.

We Pretend We’re Fine, Then Scroll and Compare Anyway

Ah yes, the age-old villain of every TED Talk, therapist’s office, and Sunday night existential crisis- social media. That highlight reel we keep doom-scrolling through has turned into a full-blown comparison Olympics. We’re out here watching everyone’s greatest hits- job promotions, Bali vacations, baby announcements- while sitting in our pajamas wondering if switching shampoos counts as personal growth.

What we don’t see is the behind-the-scenes mess. They also pushed through bad days, wrestled with silent doubts, and made compromises to get where they are. And yet, it’s so easy to believe everyone else made all the “right” choices while we accidentally took a nap during life’s roadmap briefing. No wonder this stuff feeds our grief; especially the grief of the life we never lived.

Rewriting the Grief: Finding Meaning in Your Current Life

So, how do we stop circling the what-ifs and start moving forward? How do we release the lives we didn’t live and fully embrace the one we’re in?

It starts with reframing regret- not as a sign of failure but as proof that we cared. That we had dreams. That we were capable of imagining different possibilities for ourselves. And that, in itself, is a beautiful thing.

1. The Myth of taking the “Right” Path

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that there was one perfect path, and we missed it. But life isn’t a linear story with a single correct script. It’s a collection of choices, circumstances, and chance.

If you’re a Marvel fan like me, maybe you’ve had this thought too- the multiverse theory. Somewhere out there, another version of you chased her passion, moved to a new city, or married someone else. But here’s the thing we don’t consider: even in that timeline, she has regrets too.

Every choice comes with trade-offs. We romanticize the lives we didn’t live because we don’t see the behind-the-scenes: the doubts, the sacrifices, the struggles. But they’re always there. Just hidden behind a prettier filter.

2. Reframe Regret : What Did Your Choices Give You?

Instead of mourning what you lost, ask yourself: What did I gain?

Sure, you didn’t become an artist, but maybe you found stability and a way to support your family.

You didn’t move abroad, but you built a community where you are.

You didn’t follow your teenage dreams, but you discovered new ones along the way.

We call this benefit-finding– the practice of recognizing positive outcomes from past decisions, even if they weren’t what you originally planned.

It’s not about toxic positivity or pretending everything’s perfect. It’s about shifting your focus from “what I missed” to “what I gained.”

When we reframe our past decisions through this lens, we stop seeing them as mistakes and start seeing them as meaningful stepping stones. Because even the so-called wrong turns had something to offer.

3. Flip the Script on Your Story

The stories we tell ourselves about our past shape how we feel about our present. If you constantly replay your life as a series of missed opportunities, you’ll always feel like you fell short. But if you see it as a journey- one with detours, unexpected lessons, and second chances, it becomes a story of growth.

You’re not “too late” for anything.
There’s no invisible timeline you need to catch up to.
This is your life and you’re allowed to move through it at your own pace.

4. Find Ways to Honor Your Grief

Just because you didn’t take a certain path doesn’t mean you have to bury that part of yourself forever. Maybe you can’t go back and redo your 20s, but you can still:

• Take that art class.
• Visit the place you once couldn’t stop thinking about.
• Write, dance, create- whatever it was you once loved.
• Mentor someone who’s walking the path you once considered.

The dream doesn’t have to die, it can just grow up with you.

5. Letting Go of the Need to “Prove” Yourself

A lot of our grief comes from feeling like we need to show the world we made the right choices. That we have something to show for our decisions. But true contentment doesn’t come from external validation, but it comes from internal peace.

As Erikson’s theory suggests, we reach true life satisfaction when we stop trying to compare, compete, or prove, and instead find meaning in what we have.

And if you ever feel like you “should be further ahead” by now, remind yourself:

You are not a failure for taking a different path.
Your worth isn’t measured by a timeline or a title.
You are allowed to be proud of the life you’ve built, even if it’s not the one you imagined.

You Are More Than Your Grief

The grief of who you could have been is real. But so is the beauty of who you are now. Life was never about ticking all the right boxes. It’s about stumbling, learning, growing, and learning to hold space for both the dreams we lost and the person we became instead.

And if you ever find yourself looking back, wondering what could have been, just remember:

The version of you who made those choices was doing the best they could with what they knew.
The version of you today still has time to create, explore, and redefine what fulfillment looks like.
And the version of you in the future will thank you for choosing to be present, instead of living in the past.

The post The Grief of Who You Could Have Been: Rewritten first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

The cost of cultural loyalty often lies in the battles we fight within ourselves. The kind that doesn’t make headlines but tugs relentlessly at our choices. It’s the constant push and pull between honoring cultural norms and chasing personal freedom. And while no one explicitly says “you can’t do this,” the silent pressures often speak louder than words.

Growing up in a culture rooted in tradition feels like walking a tightrope. Village councils and societal norms pulls us from one end while we also try to tiptoe into modernity.

We carry more than just our names. We carry our villages, our families, and the understanding that every mistake reflects on everyone we belong to.

Take the simple decision of moving abroad to work or study. Technically, there’s support. Parents cheer you on, friends wish you well, but there’s a lingering thought that follows you: “Should I be staying back?”

It’s not always loud, but it’s there. The cultural expectation that, one day, you’ll return home, settle down, and carry on the legacy. It’s not an obligation enforced by rules but by love, duty, and tradition.

There’s pride in belonging, but also guilt in stepping away from it.

Collectivist Guilt and Responsibility

And this isn’t just cultural, it’s psychological. Cultural loyalty creates belonging, but it can also cause guilt when personal dreams clash with group expectations. This concept of collectivist guilt (individuals feel responsible for group well-being) can slowly lead to anxiety, depression, and burnout.

In communities like ours, where cultures hold very strong communal ties, often foster a sense of collective responsibility. This means that individuals weigh their decisions against the larger good. It’s why many of us hesitate to pursue choices that could be seen as “selfish.”

Even everyday decisions like what you wear, how you express opinions, even the way you engage with your faith. Every choice is filtered through, “What will people think?” and ‘Will this reflect badly on my family?”

I remember when I first chose to study psychology. The reactions were a mix of confusion and concern.

There was genuine fear that delving into the human mind meant stepping away from God. Ironically, it was my faith that shaped my compassion for others.

The “Pray It Away” Culture: When Faith and Cultural Loyalty Collide

In many communities, therapy is often sidelined, with prayer centers being the first (and sometimes only) recourse. The belief isn’t malicious, generations have rooted this belief in the understanding that suffering is spiritual and healing comes through faith. But this often leaves mental health struggles in the shadows.

There’s another layer to this and it’s what psychologists call learned helplessness. When people are told, time and again, that prayer is the only path to healing, it can lead to resignation. Over time, it feels pointless to seek help elsewhere because the belief has been shaped that nothing else will work. It’s not a lack of faith, but a conditioned response.

Labeling mental health issues as spiritual failings silences people.

I’ve seen it happen. Someone struggling silently, told to “pray harder” or ‘”have more faith.” And when the struggle continues, it feels like a personal failure. Shame grows, and so does the isolation. People stop seeking support, not because they don’t need it, but because they believe it’s futile to ask for it.

But the truth is, therapy doesn’t diminish faith. If anything, it strengthens it by offering tools to navigate pain that prayer alone may not address. It helps break that cycle of helplessness, reminding people that seeking help isn’t a sign of weakness, but courage.

Bridging the Gap Between Prayer and Therapy

The Path Forward

Navigating cultural loyalty often brings up questions about personal choices. Selfish or Selfless? explores this reflection further, shedding light on the dilemma of decision-making.

The post Cultural Loyalty: The Burden of Being Rooted but Restless first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

Doomscrolling can reinforce negative thoughts and a negative mindset, something that can greatly impact your mental health. – Cleveland Clinic

Every Sunday, like clockwork, my phone sends me the dreaded screen time report. And every Sunday, I stare at the numbers in disbelief. “Five hours a day? That can’t be right. I have a life. I do things.”  But do I? Because if my phone says I spent nearly a full workday scrolling through the abyss of social media, then what exactly have I been doing with my existence?

Welcome to the joyless black hole known as doomscrolling– where your thumb keeps scrolling, your anxiety keeps rising, and your sleep schedule keeps suffering.

Doomscrolling has become second nature to many of us. It’s the 21st-century version of staring into the void, except the void stares back with breaking news, Twitter arguments, and Reels that somehow know too much about your childhood trauma.

But why do we do it? And more importantly, how do we stop?

What Even Is Doomscrolling?

Doomscrolling is the habit of endlessly consuming negative news, often on social media or news apps, despite knowing it’s making you feel worse.

It’s like a catching a whiff of something disturbingly potent. You know it’s bad, but instead of walking away, you lean in, sniff again, and then invite everyone around you to confirm just how terrible it is. Before you know it, you’re all inhaling misery like a pack of overly curious sniffer dogs, suffocating in the very thing you should have ignored.

The term gained traction around 2020 when we were all practically glued to our screens, refreshing endlessly for the latest on the pandemic, political chaos, or whatever fresh disaster had decided to trend that day. But even outside of global crises, doomscrolling has cemented itself as a daily ritual for many of us.

Why Are We Addicted to the Scroll? Blame Your Brain!

The answer lies in our brain chemistry. It’s not just a lack of willpower, it’s your brain working exactly as it was designed to because your brain loves information, especially when it thinks that information is critical to your survival.

Back in the day, this instinct kept us alive. For instance, knowing which berries were poisonous or where predators lurked was the difference between life and death. Fast forward to today, and that same wiring has us refreshing news feeds, scanning for threats we can’t outrun, and obsessing over crises we have no control over.

And let’s be real, sometimes scrolling isn’t even about the news. Scrolling is like a coping mechanism.

Uncomfortable social situation? Your phone becomes a shield.

Awkward silence? Time to ‘urgently’ reply to a text that doesn’t exist.

Someone makes eye contact? Oh wow, would you look at that, suddenly I must scroll through my 2017 photos like I’m on a top-secret mission.

It’s the modern-day ‘I’m busy, don’t talk to me’ sign, except, it’s socially acceptable.

The Science of The Scroll: Why We Can’t Look Away

Social media and news feeds are designed to be sticky, meaning they keep us engaged by constantly offering new, unpredictable content. Every scroll is like a scratch card- you don’t know if you’ll uncover a funny meme, a juicy headline, or something totally useless, but the suspense keeps you going.

And that’s where the dopamine trap comes in.

The Dopamine Trap:

Dopamine- the brain’s reward chemical. It fuels behaviours that feel good temporarily, whether it’s gambling, binge-watching, or, you guessed it, doomscrolling. Every new post, headline, or update delivers a quick dopamine hit, trapping us in a cycle of “just one more” until suddenly, an hour (or three) has disappeared.

The Negativity Bias:

Bad news sticks. Our brains are wired to pay more attention to negative information because evolutionarily speaking, that’s what kept us safe. It’s why we rubberneck at car crashes. We can’t look away from danger. Except now, it’s an endless scroll of worst-case scenarios, and we’re trapped in the front row with no intermission.

The Illusion of Control:

We doomscroll because we think staying informed gives us power over the chaos.

News Flash! It doesn’t.

But our brains don’t get the memo. We convince ourselves that if we read one more article, refresh one more time, or check one more source, maybe we’ll finally make sense of the mess.

We tell ourselves that knowing every detail will prepare us, that awareness equals action.  But in reality, we’re just passively absorbing negativity, tricking ourselves into thinking we’re doing something useful.

(And if part of your doomscrolling is secretly fueled by needing to stay ultra in control 24/7, maybe check out my blog on hyper-independence too. Just saying. :))

Doomscrolling Toll on Mental Health

Scrolling might offer temporary relief, but it comes at a cost. Here’s how it messes with you:

• Increased Anxiety & Stress: Constant exposure to distressing news keeps your nervous system in fight-or-flight mode, making relaxation feel impossible.
• Shortened Attention Span: Do you feel like you can’t focus on anything longer than a 15 second video? Doomscrolling trains your brain to crave constant, bite-sized updates, making deep focus harder.
• Sleep Disruptions: Reading upsetting news before bed? That’s a one-way ticket to a restless night.
• Learned Helplessness: A nonstop flood of bad news can make the world feel hopeless- like nothing we do makes a difference. It’s not exactly the best mindset.

The Social Side Effects

We’re constantly bombarded with bad news, perfectly curated lives, and opinions we never asked for. It’s a lot for one brain to handle. And that overload doesn’t just stay inside our heads, it spills out into how we connect with the people around us.

Conversations interrupted by constant screen-checking are all too common. Have you ever been in a conversation where someone just can’t put their phone down? Annoying, right?

Should you continue? Pause? Pretend you didn’t notice?

That tiny moment speaks volumes. When screens take priority, real-life connections suffer.

How to Stop Doomscrolling Without Going Full Digital Detox

Relax, I’m not saying you need to delete all your social media and disappear into the wilderness. Although, let’s be honest, the thought has crossed most of our minds. But quitting the internet isn’t exactly realistic. Instead, here’s a few tips on how you can regain control:

• Set Boundaries: Use screen time limits or grayscale mode to make scrolling less appealing. (Yes, your phone actually has these features. No, they’re not just for other people.)
• Curate Your Feed: Follow accounts that add value whether it’s educational, inspiring, or just really good dog videos.
• Social Accountability: Call out your friends (nicely) if they’re glued to their screens. And, more importantly, let them call you out too.
• Digital Detox Moments: Try phone-free dinners, walks, or even just a “no scrolling in bed” rule. Your brain will thank you.

The Bottom Line

Doomscrolling, like everything in life, comes with the good and the bad. It connects us, entertains us, and sometimes even helps us cope. But if your screen time report keeps making you question your life choices, then maybe it’s time for a change.

While we can’t control what’s happening in the world, we CAN control how much we let it consume us. The world will keep spinning whether we check the news 50 times a day or just once. And unless we’re journalists or policymakers, most of the information we obsess over won’t change our daily lives.

So the next time you catch yourself trapped in an endless scroll, ask yourself: “Is this actually helping me? Or am I just looking for control in a place where it doesn’t exist?”

Yes, you can still scroll a little but don’t forget to look up every once in a while. Some of life’s best moments happen off the screen.

(But, you know, finish reading this first. Then log off.)

The post Doomscrolling: Effects on Mental Health & How to Stop first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

I still say grace before meals. I still pray before bed and after I wake up just as I did growing up on Sunday school benches, youth services, memory verses, and sermons about heaven and hell. Even now, as an adult living on my own, some habits are stitched so deeply into my religious routine that they feel automatic.

But somewhere between those childhood rituals and adult reality, something else crept in, too. Something heavier, quieter. Harder to pray away.

Growing Up Faithful in a Fearful Mind

For so many of us raised in religious homes, adult anxiety doesn’t always come from trauma in the obvious sense. Sometimes it’s quieter. Sometimes it’s the soft, persistent fear of not measuring up. Of being watched. Judged. Left out of the “kingdom.”

See, religious anxiety isn’t always loud. Sometimes it shows up as perfectionism. Overthinking. The constant replaying of conversations, scanning for the thing you might’ve said wrong. Sometimes it’s that urge to confess thoughts you haven’t even acted on, just in case.

I’m not saying religion is the villain here. I’m still a believer practicing my faith the best way I know how but growing up in a setting where doubts meant weakness and suffering was just “God testing you” ? Yeah, that tends to leave a mark.

The Lingering Weight of “Goodness”

It starts small.

When you’re a kid, it’s just the rules. You follow them because you’re told they keep you good, pure, worthy. But over time, “goodness” stops being about actions and starts becoming something you attach to your identity. Something fragile that you can lose.

And sure, guilt has its place. It reminds us where we’ve strayed. But when you learn it through the lens of sin and punishment, it becomes something heavier. It turns into chronic self-surveillance. And suddenly, what was supposed to be a source of comfort becomes an endless loop of trying to be “better,” “holier,” “more worthy.”

As a therapist and as a Christian, I’ve had to spend years untangling those knots. Asking myself where my faith ends and where fear begins. Learning how to keep the rituals that bring me peace while unlearning the ones that keep me small.

Religious Shame, Learned Young and Carried Long

Religious shame is different from ordinary shame.

Because when morality is tied to your worth as a person, mistakes stop being moments. They become identities. You don’t just mess up. You ARE messed up.

Religious shame prides itself in telling you that certain parts of you- your curiosity, your feelings, your doubts- are wrong for simply existing. And even years later, when you know better, when you’re actively unlearning it all, there’s still that quiet voice whispering, “But what if you’re wrong? What if you’re bad after all?”

The Therapist’s Religious Dilemma

Because isn’t the whole point of helping people… to help people? Isn’t empathy supposed to stretch beyond our personal beliefs?

Faith should never be a filter for who deserves care. And yet, in spaces like ours, where religion isn’t just part of the culture, it IS the culture, those lines blur way too easily.

Whichever one you listen to; it’s all the same lesson.

Rewriting the Rules

This is the complicated part for me.

After over a decade of learning how the human mind works, how it breaks, how it bends, how it heals, the more I started to see the tangled threads between religion and mental health.

No matter what your faith looks like, a lot of us are carrying this invisible pressure to be good enough. To earn love. To avoid punishment. To belong.

I’ve also seen the good- the hope, the structure, the peace that faith can bring. I still experience that myself. But I know now that it’s okay to separate faith from the fear and control that sometimes come packaged with it.

And more than anything, you are allowed to stop proving your worth.

Where I Find Peace Now

And if that relationship makes you feel anxious, afraid, or unworthy? It’s time to reimagine it. Because peace shouldn’t feel like a reward you earn for behaving perfectly. It should be the ground you stand on, no matter what.

But that’s just me, in my Baptist life, in my Christian ways.

And when you find that…

The post God, Guilt, and the Quiet Panic of Growing Up Religious first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

When it comes to psychology and therapy, there are many misconceptions that prevent people from seeking the help they need. Let’s debunk five of the most common ones:

It’s Just Talk Therapy

One of the most common misconceptions about therapy is that it’s just a one-to-one conversation with the patient and therapist sitting across from each other.  Although that’s not how every therapy session goes, you can’t be blamed for only thinking that therapy is all about talking because popular TV shows and movies only show this side of therapy. Except for a few, the therapist is always a glasses-wearing, formally dressed, writing pad holding, excessively nodding person!

There are so many types and forms of therapy in the world. The extensive study of psychology has introduced many pioneers, founders, and developers of different forms of therapy that benefit society in many ways.

Psychologists have always understood that each person is unique and thus needs unique approaches to tackle their problems. 

So, no. Talking is not everything a therapy session is. Depending on what type of therapist you go to, you will have different experiences. Therapists use various techniques, like role-playing and group sessions, to understand client needs.

Misconceptions About Who Needs Therapy: Only for Serious Mental Illness

This age-old stigma has glued on to us like gum on our shoes. It never really goes away. Tiny traces of it always remain.

Anything that gives you solace, lets you feel at peace and maybe takes your mind off of the stress a little bit, if not all, is therapeutic. 

You don’t need to have a raging, life-threatening problem to go to therapy. Not everyone who goes to therapy needs to pop pills to feel better.

People come for struggles with relationships, self-confidence, career choices, self-esteem, motivation, and so many more. 

When repressed, suppressed, and not dealt with, the minor, seemingly insignificant problems and issues are prone to manifesting themselves into more extensive issues and consuming power over you. 

I can’t stress enough the power our mental state holds on our physical life. We think by suppressing such thoughts, we are growing, and we’re not affected by it. But more often than not, this issue comes back and manifests itself in many forms that we don’t even realize why it happens. This is where therapy comes in.

What you think might be a trivial matter could be the biggest struggle for some. So when someone comes to you for help on such issues, be open to lending them a listening ear; that could be all they need. 

You’ll never know unless you deep dive into your own self and uncover the truth. 

Therapists Blame Your Past for Present Problems

Therapists believe in “no shame, no blame.” But one of the most used phrases with misconceptions about psychology is that they blame your past for your problems.

However, the entire repertoire of a therapist consists of “no judgment” no matter what. The job exists so people have a safe place to talk about problems without fearing judgment or shunning.

Contrary to popular belief, not all therapy focuses on the past. Yes, many problems can have their roots in the past, and uncovering the past truth will give you answers. There’s no denying that flipping through your book of life will undoubtedly bear the answers to some of the problems you have now. But sometimes, the answer lies in the now. 

Take Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, for example. Therapists who specialize in this form of therapy focus on the problem at hand. They do not need to know your past to understand your situation now. Focusing on solutions, they say ‘the problem is the problem, not the person.

Misconceptions About Therapy Results: Immediate Improvement After 1-2 Sessions

Misconceptions that therapy is a quick fix, is widespread. But therapy is not a quick fix. Unlike traditional pain killers, therapy does not have a one-stop solution to all your problems. 

They say “good things take time,” and I believe that taking your time to navigate through life, with each step, calculated in a way that benefits you, adds up to make a life for yourself that’s free from unnecessary stress.

A typical therapy session lasts 40-45 minutes, and this can be repeated 2-3 times a week. It will depend on your case and what your therapist deems is beneficial for you. Although, some new forms of contemporary therapy, like Brief therapy, are considerably shorter than traditional therapy. 

With that said, the beauty of therapy lies in the relationship you build with your therapist and vice versa. A healthy relationship takes time and effort from both ends. When this happens through days, weeks and months, it makes the relationship even more important to your mental health.

There is a fundamental importance in the building of a strong client-therapist relationship. Only if the connection is strong will you trust your therapist, be open, and eventually allow you to accept yourself. 

Trusting your therapist is everything in a therapy session. And for this, you need a positive therapeutic relationship.

Therapists Give Clear-Cut Solutions

When we talk about psychology misconceptions, one thing that rings loud is the idea that therapists give you all the answers. But the truth is, you should never go into therapy expecting clear-cut solutions to all your problems. You can, but if you do, you’ll most probably come out of it discouraged or dissatisfied. 

The main goal of therapy is to guide you and give you the necessary tools to navigate your life correctly. Therapists are there to listen to your problems. They try to understand how you feel, and develop coping strategies to help you find your way in life successfully.

In many ways, your therapist is the older adult in the movies, spewing wisdom. Or they can be the person you meet to ask directions when you’re lost, the one that ushers you to your seats in a show. Ultimately, your therapist is the one with the map. 

They first learn where you’re coming from, where you want to go, then give you the directions and the tools you need to get there.

I once heard a saying that goes something along the lines of, “if you give credit to your therapist for feeling better, the job of the therapist is not yet complete. But if you credit yourself for getting where you are, then you have had the opportunity of finding the right therapist for you.”

Don’t let misconceptions hold you back from achieving mental well-being. Discover practical strategies for building a healthy mindset in our article, What goes into building a healthy mindset?

The post Debunking Five Misconceptions About Psychology first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

Whenever I get asked the question, “Who are you?” a hundred different answers run through my mind.

Each of these identities forms a narrative, a story I tell about myself, which Narrative Therapy, in turn, helps us examine and reshape. Indeed, even with this whole paragraph of identities that I and others have about me, I can still be another 100 paragraphs’ worth of identities.

The Architect of Your Narrative: How to Re-Author with Therapy

Narrative therapy believes that you are the stories you tell about yourself. Reality is socially constructed, therefore, the interactions we have with people become our reality. Moreover, narratives of our lives, including hardships, achievements, and hopes, form our experiences, and consequently, our live stories.

It lets people create stories, controlling their realities. We tell stories that identify who we are by stitching together different moments in our lives into a cohesive whole. These stories carry the essence of who we are. By the logic of this type of therapy, the narrative you carry about your life is your reality.

Identifying Problem-Saturated Stories: A Key Component of Narrative Therapy

If I carry a story about me as a good cook, I have come to this conclusion by putting together a series of events in my life where I was appreciated for the food I prepared. Indeed, the more snippets of stories I add to this, the easier it is to demonstrate how I am a good cook because “someone once said…”

However, my competence in cooking is fiercely dominated by the idea that I have done exceptionally well in a sequence of events while dismissing the times that I might have done a terrible job because it does not fit into the dominant story- that I am a good cook. Similarly, negative thoughts can fester in your mind and actively convince you that you are what you think.

Like many others, narrative therapy carries a political and social agenda- to help individuals liberate themselves from their culture dominated problem-saturated stories.

These stories are ‘distorted,’ ‘disempowering,’ and ‘unhelpful’ assumptions that dominate our narratives; sometimes to a point where it might seem unlikely that an alternate story exists.

Externalizing the Problem: The Art of Externalizing in Re-Authoring

The problem story paints the picture of an event or an experience in such a way that it cripples the reality of the storyteller, making it seem like there’s no end to the problem and nothing can be changed.

The narrative therapist will try to flip this situation by showing the narrator that there are visible choices and responses they can make to change the dominant problem story.

Instead of, “Anxiety is trying to control me,” we externalize the anxiety. Hence, you can begin to see it as a separate entity, something you can challenge and manage, rather than an inherent part of yourself.

In other words, therapist helps the narrator tell their story from a different point of view, one that makes them more powerful, bigger and stronger than the problem.

Challenging Dominant Discourses: Re-Author Against Dominant Narratives

Narrative therapy aims to brand the narrator as the expert in their experience through capitalizing on the individual’s story-telling tendencies. The uniqueness of our cultures and societies birth different dominant discourses which can influence our personal narratives and become our realities.

Mirror, Mirror: Extending Compassion Inward

As social beings, we navigate an intricate web of unspoken rules, designed to maintain harmony. We crave peace, not just on a global scale, but within our own minds. Whether we seek relaxation after a long day or the satisfaction of reaching a hard-won goal, peace is the underlying pursuit. So, why the stark contrast?

If we would never label a friend incompetent, unlovable, or hopeless, why do we subject ourselves to such harsh judgments? Why remain trapped in a self-destructive narrative when we possess the power to rewrite it?

We are the narrators of our lives. Our thoughts and words shape our reality. They do!

You are the narrator of your life story.

Therefore, you are quite literally what you think!

Re-Author Your Life: Finding Meaning and Purpose Through Narrative Therapy

From the perspective of the therapist, these dominant discourses play the most vital role in creating the problem stories which bring people to therapy in the first place.

Unlike most therapies, narrative therapy is focused on the way people construct meaning rather than on the way people behave. The prime detail in therapy is to separate the person from their problem so that the issues are externalized, creating a clear distinction between “an individual with problems” and “a problematic individual.”

Narrative therapy believes that all people have good intentions and don’t need or want problems. Which stands true because who wants to be prematurely bald, constantly burdened, stressed out and on edge?

As the goal of therapy is to separate the person from the problem, once this is done, people are free to create and re-author their own stories.

The therapists seeks to UN-label individuals as “the problem”

There exists a notion in existential psychology that believes in a world with no inherent meaning. (A detailed story for the next blog!) Therefore, if there is no meaning in existence then people can create their own meaning.

There is no absolute truth because people can have multiple interpretations of a single event/experience. Narrative therapy encourages people to create their own stories and negate the “universal or absolute truths” that do not necessarily apply to them.

Finding meaning and purpose in your life that serves you and your truth is the final goal.

You are more than the stories that bind you. If not now, when? If not you, who?
Your story starts now.

Beyond reshaping your narratives, practical steps are essential for a healthy mindset. To learn more about these strategies, consider reading What goes into building a healthy mindset?.

The post Re-author your life: Narrative Therapy for Lasting Change first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.