Too Much or Not Enough?

I was sitting at my favourite spot that evening, doing what I usually do when I don’t want to rush my thoughts. Watching the sunset. Holding a cup of ginger tea. Folding paper, slowly, without any particular outcome in mind. That’s when this question came up.

Too much or not enough?

It felt familiar. Like something I had been circling for a while without naming. Somewhere between conversations, late-night thoughts, and the constant stream of advice online.

Lately, everything seems to come with a label. A warning or may be some sort of excuse to avoid accountability. 

Care openly and you’re clingy. Express affection and it’s cringe. Pull back and you’re detached. Ask for effort and it’s princess treatment. Accept less and it’s the bare minimum debate all over again.

I see how this plays out in everyday moments. Like when your love language starts feeling like too much simply because the other person doesn’t value it the same way. What feels like care to you becomes excess to someone else. How a simple text like 'keep me updated' suddenly sounds intrusive in certain spaces. Not because it actually is, but because attentiveness has been mistaken for control. How often you hold back what’s actually on your mind. Not because you don’t have thoughts or feelings, but because you don’t want to sound needy, intense, or demanding. So you soften it. Delay it. Sometimes swallow it entirely.

None of this comes from insecurity alone. A lot of it comes from awareness. From knowing how easily intentions get misread these days. But awareness, over time, turns into self-editing.

We start asking ourselves questions before we act. Is this too much? Is this too soon? Is this what someone secure would do? Is this aligned with whatever language is trending right now? May be this is where things start going off track.

Sometimes I wonder when being human became such a performative and carefully monitored activity.

I catch myself pausing before doing the simplest things. Not because I don’t know what I feel but because I’m trying to predict how it would look through someone else’s framework. Through a reel. Through a trend. Through language that isn’t mine. May be this is where we’re getting it wrong.

Not everything needs to be filtered through what’s currently 'trending'. Not every emotion needs to pass the internet’s vibe check. What’s trending right now might be useful for some people but it doesn’t automatically apply to everyone.

FOMO has a funny way of convincing us that if we’re not doing relationships, healing, or self-respect the approved way, we’re falling behind. As if there’s a syllabus we missed. As if there’s a correct emotional posture everyone else has mastered. So we start performing restraint, independence and detachment. We learn to look composed even when it costs us honesty. We are so busy intellectualising our emotions, we lose touch with what we actually feel.

Some people genuinely want reassurance. Some  actually enjoy consistency. Some people don’t mind texting first. Some people don’t want grand gestures and don’t call that settling.

None of this is inferior. It’s just different. May be, sadly, we are not appreciating the fact that differences can co exist and that can be beautiful, too! I don’t think it’s brave to suppress tenderness just because softness is being mocked.  I don’t think it’s maturity to detach when closeness feels natural to you. I don’t think wanting effort automatically means you’re asking for too much. Sometimes it just means you’re wired differently. That’s not a flaw! Sometimes it just means you care. Care doesn’t need to be trendy to be valid.

That evening, as the sky shifted colours, I realised maybe the real need right now isn’t to fix ourselves or relabel ourselves but to allow ourselves. To stop outsourcing our emotional decisions to whatever language is circulating the fastest. To let ourselves feel what we feel without asking whether it aligns with a trend. To let ourselves be as we are, without apologising for it. 

I finished my tea. The paper I was folding was imperfect, slightly uneven, still fine. The sun didn’t wait for applause. It didn’t worry about timing. It didn’t try to prove anything.

The sun set quietly that evening, without asking whether it had been too much or not enough.