Do You Ever Get Tired? | THEBEYONDWOMAN

In a world that’s constantly online, sometimes the soul just wants to unplug. This reflection explores our quiet longing for simplicity — the kind of peace we knew growing up in the Caribbean — and asks whether progress has come at the cost of presence.

Do you ever just get tired? Not the kind of tired that a nap or a quick getaway can fix, but the deep kind — the kind that seeps into your spirit. Tired of all the noise. The endless opinions. The flood of information that most times leaves us feeling emptier instead of more informed. Some days I find myself longing for silence — not just the absence of sound, but the kind of quiet that lets you think. The kind that used to come naturally before every moment had to be documented, before we started living through screens instead of real conversations. Can any of you identify?

Growing up in the Caribbean as a young girl felt slower. People were present. You didn’t need to schedule connection — it just happened. Your aunties and uncles would pass by, sit on the porch, and talk and thats where you learned about life. You knew your neighbors. You laughed until your belly hurt. You shared food, shared stories, shared space. There was a rhythm, an ease. Life was simple, but it was full. But then, slowly, people started leaving, families migrated—chasing opportunity, a better life, stability that one could not blame them for doing, but it did not diminish the sadness to see them go as one by one, those porches grew quieter. WhatsApp calls and Facebook messages tried to fill the gap, but it’s not the same as hearing laughter echo across the yard or smelling Sunday dinner coming from two houses down. We became more connected online but less connected in the ways that truly mattered.

Now, we’ve got everything at our fingertips — access, opportunity, knowledge. And yet, somehow, we’re more anxious, more distracted, more disconnected than ever. Technology has given us the world, but sometimes it feels like it’s taken away our peace. But here’s the question that sits heavy with me: is it wrong to long for simplicity? To crave a life that’s not constantly “on”? To want fewer pings, fewer updates, fewer hot takes from people who seem to know everything about nothing?

Maybe not. Maybe the longing itself is a sign that something inside us still remembers what wholeness feels like.

At the same time, I can’t deny what progress has done for us. We’re more informed, more aware, more empowered to share our voices especially as women. Technology has opened doors for women like us, Caribbean women building platforms, sharing stories, and shaping culture in ways our grandmothers could never have imagined. That’s a gift. But even gifts need boundaries. Advancement without balance becomes overload to us and the connection without presence becomes noise unfortunately. And that’s where many of us are right now, I think, trying to hold on to the best of both worlds.

Maybe the goal isn’t to go back, but to reclaim what we’ve lost — to bring the spirit of that simpler time into how we now live. Maybe it looks like choosing slower mornings. Leaving the phone in another room. Having real conversations. Cooking and inviting friends over just because.Maybe peace isn’t behind us, maybe it’s something we have to intentionally rebuild. There’s that word I love, intentional, and we must become intentional especially in a world that profits from our distraction.

So yes, I get tired. Maybe you do too. But I’m learning that rest doesn’t mean retreating — it means remembering, an act I have found to be quite valuable—remembering what used to ground us.

Remembering when presence mattered more than productivity, when laughter came easier, when connection wasn’t measured in likes or views. Remembering who we were before the noise — before the constant pull to be more, do more, share more. Because that kind of remembering brings us back to ourselves. Back to what’s real, what fills us, what lasts. Simplicity isn’t old-fashioned. It’s home

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