They never told you to give up. They only asked you to be realistic.

There is a violence so subtle it leaves no visible scars, no broken bones — only a stifling of breath, a constriction of possibility. It is the quiet murmur of teachers, mentors, friends who, perhaps with kindness in their hearts, taught you to aim lower. Lower than what you dared to imagine. Lower than what you once believed was possible.

Why did you listen?

It is not the grand defeats that break us. It is the thousand small resignations, the incremental narrowing of what we believe we deserve. They tell you the world is dangerous, unstable, unpredictable. Better not to risk it all. Better to settle, to choose the safe path. Better to quiet the voice that demands more, lest it be disappointed.

And so the dream becomes modest. The ambition shrinks to fit inside the sanctioned boxes. The fire once burning in your chest becomes a flicker, an ember, barely noticeable beneath the ash.

Who taught you to lower your eyes, to speak softly, to dream small? Was it the parent who feared for your security? The teacher who measured success in predictable increments? The colleague who could not fathom a life beyond the confines of quarterly reviews and performance metrics?

Perhaps it was no one. Perhaps it was all of them — the collective weight of a society terrified of failure, of uncertainty, of deviation. They build their altars to security and call it wisdom.

But security is the great anesthetic. It numbs the mind, dulls the soul. It teaches you to survive but forgets to teach you how to live.

Did you believe them because it was easier? Because daring greatly also meant risking greatly? Because reaching beyond what is offered requires standing alone in the void, with no promises, no guarantees?

They never told you that the cost of aiming low is not simply missed opportunity. It is the erosion of self, the quiet death of the part of you that once believed you were meant for something more.

You survive, yes. You tick the boxes, meet the expectations, collect the accolades designed for a life of caution. And maybe, if you're lucky, the dull ache of what could have been is soft enough to ignore most days.

But there are nights — quiet, heavy nights — when the silence presses against your chest, when you remember the person you were before the compromises, before the quiet violence took root.

And you wonder: Was survival worth the price of surrender?

Perhaps the real violence was never the failures, but the dreams abandoned before they could even be tested.

In the end, the question remains, sharp and unanswered:

What would you have become if you had never learned to aim lower?