WHERE is home, really? Is it a place, a feeling or the people who make us feel seen?
We often speak of belonging as if it were fixed, something we find once and never lose. Yet belonging is rarely permanent.
It shifts, reshapes and evolves as we do. What once felt like home may one day feel distant, as if time has quietly moved the furniture of our hearts while we were not looking.
As we grow, we tend to idealise the past, painting it in softer colours than it truly was.
The childhood streets seem brighter, the laughter louder, the world somehow more forgiving. When we return to the places, the people or even the versions of ourselves we left behind, we discover that the past no longer fits. We belong less than before.
Thomas Wolfe famously said, “You can’t go home again, because home has ceased to exist except in memory.”
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Perhaps belonging is not something we lose, but something that transforms. It is not a destination but a relationship between who we are and where we are in life. To belong, then, becomes a choice. A conscious act of aligning ourselves with the present, rather than chasing the ghosts of what used to be.
Life never stands still. It moves whether we are ready or not, growing, regressing or looping in place. When we drift without awareness of where we are going or who we are becoming, we risk feeling lost. To belong requires a kind of emotional literacy; the ability to recognise what grounds us and what unravels us.
In today’s hyper-connected world, our sense of belonging has become entangled with validation. Social media, for all its connections, often feeds our insecurities more than our souls. It tells us we belong only if we are seen, liked, followed and approved. What happens when visibility becomes the measure of existence? “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” Marshall McLuhan
We’ve built a world where our worth feels public, our moments performative. When was the last time you did something meaningful without sharing it online? The silence that follows unshared joy can feel uncomfortable, almost unnatural. Yet in that, silence lies truth, the kind that is not curated for an audience. The cost of constant visibility is the erosion of presence. In being seen, we risk forgetting to be.
Belonging cannot be outsourced to others’ perceptions. It must begin within. Growth, grief and transformation are deeply internal processes invisible to the outside world, yet profoundly real. We are not meant to belong everywhere and that realisation is liberating. The search for belonging, at its deepest level, is not about finding a place where others accept us, but about finding the courage to accept ourselves even when we stand alone.
To belong is to exist beyond the perspective of others. It is to choose peace over performance, authenticity over approval. It is to walk through life without clinging to a pre-written script, one handed down by expectations, trends or fear. Choose self-awareness. Choose emotional stability. Choose peace.
William Shakespeare said, and I quote: “To thine own self be true.”
No one else can decide where you belong. That answer unfolds quietly within you, in how you show up for yourself, how you nurture stillness and how you let go of the need to be seen, to be real. Belonging is not found in a place, a person or a moment; it is found in the unshakable peace of being at home within yourself.