Imagine standing in an old house, its walls adorned with vibrant paint, yet beneath the surface, you can feel the chill of drafts whispering through cracks hidden from view. We all have these invisible gaps, echoes of past pain, missed opportunities, and broken hearts. While society often pressures us to mask these holes with external achievements or superficial connections, the truth is that they are not signs of weakness but rather markers of our humanity. What if, instead of seeking others to fill our voids, we learned to embrace these imperfections and transform them into sources of strength?

Everyone has these holes. These can stem from trauma experienced in our younger years, past experiences, and so forth. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it is simply part of life, and at the end of the day, everyone has some sort of hole. It is completely normal to carry them, to feel the drafts of emptiness in the corners of our being. What becomes foolish isn’t that they exist in the first place, but the belief that something external, whether it is from your environment, someone else, or something else—can come along and fill them.

For a long time, I thought they could. Before college, I believed relationships, accomplishments, and recognition were the answer. They felt like fresh paint on a crumbling wall. For a while, the colors were dazzling, the surface looked new, and it seemed as though the structure had been restored. But seasons always change. The paint chips. The façade fades. And underneath, the same cracks wait, untouched. That’s the trap: the world can decorate your walls, but it cannot strengthen your foundation. The right partner can distract you from your emptiness. The right win can numb you into thinking you’re whole. But eventually, the illusion collapses, and the hole is still there—sharper now because it had been disguised.

But this realization is not an ending; it is the beginning of something better.

When you stop chasing outside validation to fill the hole within, you discover something profound: fulfillment is something only you can do for yourself. It doesn’t come from someone else’s love or a job title. It comes from the messy and personal journey of learning to stand solid in your own skin, being as much as you can be.

That’s what makes college and your twenties such a thrilling stage of life. The world throws temptations at you: status, romance, approval, validation—all shiny coats of paint. And then eventually you get to decide: will you keep layering on facades, or will you dig deep and build something real? Will you continue to build a real house or a house of paper cards? This is the open canvas of our lives. You get to experiment, stumble, and rewrite your own story. That story, with all its authenticity, is the one worth telling, the one that could inspire others, even feel like the plot of a 10/10 movie.

The coolest part isn’t that the holes vanish. It’s that they give you the freedom to become fully yourself. Not the self that bends to fit in, or hides your quirks, or edits your interests just to please. But the real you—the one that endures even when the paint chips. And when you take responsibility for filling those spaces, instead of handing that power to someone else, you don’t just patch the gaps. You forge strength. You create originality. You build authenticity.

In the end, the holes don’t make us broken—they make us human. And in learning to fill them ourselves, we don’t just repair walls; we build mansions of gold. PS: Don’t feel bad about having insecurities; it is completely normal to be insecure when you are in your twenties and growing up in this age. You are still exploring and finding yourself—what you like, what you don’t, what you are good at, and so forth. Look, you got this. Ask for help; don’t be shy! Have fun. Life is too short to worry! And incase you need to hear it, you are the reason someone smiles :), don’t forget that!

Sincerely,
Tatsat

@pplcallmetat