Modern life increasingly unfolds through applications for education, employment, grants, visas, and opportunities. People invest months of effort into a single outcome, only to receive a short message informing them that the opportunity will not proceed. The event is small in appearance, but its psychological effect can be large. It is not only a plan that collapses, but a sense of direction.
After a series of such moments, many people report a particular feeling: not anger, not even sadness, but disorientation. The mental picture they had been living with no longer corresponds to reality. The future does not look negative; it simply becomes undefined.
A Pashto ghazal, often attributed to the poet Ghani Khan, captures this experience with striking precision. The refrain says:
رنګ دروغ، خوشبو دروغ، رڼا دروغ
Rang darogh, khushbo darogh, rana darogh
(Colour is fleeting, fragrance is fleeting, light is fleeting)
Then comes the line:
ښکاري راته هر څه نن سبا دروغ
Khkari rata har sa nan saba darogh
(These days, everything appears unreal to me)
The word daroogh literally translates as “false,” but in poetic usage it points to impermanence rather than deception. The poet is not claiming that life is meaningless; he is describing the moment when a person realises that what appeared stable was always subject to change.
This insight appears across traditions. Zen Buddhism similarly teaches impermanence: that all conditions arise and pass, and suffering often comes from expecting them to remain fixed. Islamic spiritual traditions, particularly Sufi writings, also emphasise the transient nature of worldly conditions and the importance of patience in changing circumstances. The language differs, but the observation is similar: anxiety grows when we attach certainty to inherently unstable outcomes.
In a world increasingly organised around competitive selection, many people quietly carry anxiety about their direction
Today, identity is often tied to outcomes such as admission letters, job titles, recognitions, and milestones. These markers become more than achievements; they become confirmations of worth. When they do not materialise, individuals frequently interpret the result as a personal verdict rather than a circumstantial decision.
Yet many outcomes depend on factors beyond individual effort: timing, competition, institutional priorities, or simple chance. The result is a mismatch between expectation and reality. Anxiety grows not only from failure, but from unpredictability.
The ghazal continues:
نه پسې خفه یمه، نه ژاړمه، وایمه دنیا ته دا دنیا دروغ
Na pase khafa yama, na jarama, wayama dunya ta da dunya darogh
(I am neither angry nor crying; I only say to the world: the world is not lasting)
This is not a resignation. It is a change in perspective. The poet does not stop striving; he stops attaching meaning exclusively to one outcome. Effort remains necessary, but certainty is no longer expected from results.
Much of contemporary anxiety may stem from treating uncertain processes as if they were guaranteed paths. Education, careers, and migration increasingly involve long periods of waiting and decisions made by distant institutions. Individuals respond by investing emotionally in a specific result. When the result changes, the mind experiences not only disappointment but instability.
Understanding impermanence does not require pessimism. It requires recalibration. One may continue to work, apply, and plan, but without allowing each decision to define one’s identity. The difference is subtle yet important: a person still cares about success, but no longer equates a single success with meaning.
In a world increasingly organised around competitive selection, many people quietly carry anxiety about their direction. The feeling that “everything is unreal” is less a sign of despair than a response to sudden unpredictability. It is the mind adjusting to a reality that does not move in straight lines.
A closed door, then, is rarely a final judgement. More often, it is part of a path whose shape becomes clear only later. In an age that measures human worth through outcomes, perhaps the quiet work of learning to live with uncertainty is not weakness but a necessary form of social wisdom. A society that cannot tolerate uncertainty begins to turn against itself; patience, therefore, is not only a personal virtue but a civic one.