New Year's Day. Muddy rice fields in Hoi An, Vietnam.

New Year's Day. Muddy rice fields in Hoi An, Vietnam. I sat in a local cafe wondering what the hell I was doing with my life.
I wasn't regretting anything. But I was terrified.

I'd rented a room in a homestay with a local family on the outskirts of the city. Rice fields on every side. Flat, endless, not even pretty (yet). The seedlings had just gone in, so the fields were muddy and brown. You knew they'd be beautiful in a few weeks. Just not yet.

New Year's carries a specific weight. The year that's passed. The one coming. You can't not reflect.

I felt it the moment I woke up. I felt off. I walked out into those fields with all of that pressing down on me and felt something I hadn't felt enough: The fear! I had no idea how this was going to play out.

I stand by every choice that got me to that otherwise beautiful part of Vietnam. But the fear of not knowing was real. What does this new year hold? When does this start making sense? How long can I hold uncertainty before it starts holding me? What if I make decisions based out of fear?

That fear stayed for days.

What pulled me out wasn't a plan or a timeline or a breakthrough. It was a simpler realization, and one that has pulled me up before: The egoic mind likes these thinking traps, but the paralyzation that follows is entirely made up. I could just move on to the next action. The next decision. To stay responsible for the life I was choosing.

That was enough before. It would be enough now.

I stopped waiting for certainty and started looking for the next decision I could make. The next step I could take.

That's what gave me my footing back.

Have you had a version of that morning? The fear that isn't about regret, just the weight of not knowing?