The world feels like it’s shrinking - but not in a good way

Everywhere I look lately, the same faces, the same handbags, the same restaurants appear. Without sounding salty, as I am fully aware that I fall into the trap myself, I'm starting to feel fatigued from the sameness of it all. We’ve mistaken visibility for value and the world has become uncomfortably transactional. You can feel it in rooms now - the subtle sizing up. Who are you wearing, where are you summering, how successful are your children?

I know it sounds bleak, but it’s hard to see how it improves when everything is built around comparison and perceived value. It takes a lot of strength not to get sucked into it. To not want to buy the latest "thing" or go to the newest "hotspot". And listen, I'm not advocating for you to stop doing those things. What I am advocating for is authenticity - where going, doing, wearing comes naturally to you and isn't forced because you feel like you "have" to be that person. I'm advocating for an end to feeling like you have to be everywhere, or feel like you’re failing because you chose a quiet evening at home over another event with the same 47 faces pretending to have the best night of their lives.

October and November, in particular, feel like a marathon of social obligations. The endless small talk. The polite exhaustion of showing up. And yet, saying no can feel almost radical. How do you decline an invite simply because you want to spend a night with your kids without sounding like a recluse?

And social media is the beast that feeds the entire machine. I’ve been thinking a lot about what we share and what we don’t. Running a family business, I feel both joy and obligation in sharing my life. The messy parts, the celebrations, the tips and tricks that might help another parent.

And yes, I know - I’m also that mum who throws the big birthday parties and goes all out on the details. I’m known for it. But for me, those moments are less about aesthetics and more about aliveness. I don’t plan them for the grid, I plan them for the laughter, the chaos, the memory. It’s where I come alive. But I do think somewhere along the way, we’ve all blurred the line between celebrating for joy and curating for proof and that’s what I’m really trying to stay mindful of.

And maybe I do sound pessimistic, but lately I feel like I’m losing my faith in humanity one Instagram scroll at a time. Everyone’s tablescapes look the same. The same candles, the same flowers, the same “effortless” linen napkins folded just so. It feels like we’re living through a pandemic of joylessness, where originality is dying and people are performing happiness rather than feeling it. There's a fine line between aspiration and imitation - and I sometimes wonder when does one stop chasing what they truly love and start copying what simply looks "good". 

Even the “real” moments online don’t always feel real anymore. Sadness, burnout - even those have an aesthetic now. Relatability has become a strategy, not a feeling. 

I read something recently about the evil eye - the idea that we invite bad energy by oversharing. The modern version of that is “energy". And honestly, I do feel there is some truth in it. You can unintentionally send energy someone’s way: envy, curiosity, judgment - without meaning to. It’s not mystical, it’s science. The energy you emit interacts with someone else’s field. So maybe the old superstition had a point. Maybe it’s not about superstition at all, but protection.

David Ghiyam, who I recently had the immense pleasure of seeing in Dubai for his full-day workshop, is a leading voice in Kabbalah, and is a staunch believer in not sharing an idea within the first 90 days of conceiving it. He argues that that things need time to take root before they face the world’s energy. I think about that a lot as a mother. Where’s the balance between protecting joy and letting it breathe? Between guarding our lives and actually living them?

There are no neat answers here. Just an observation that the world has never been louder and has never felt more inauthentic. And as a mother, I wonder what these implications have on the next generation. 

I feel this note has been more pessimistic that others - but these topics have been the ones at the heart of so many cozy dinner-tables, where I can see that all around me, people are craving for less performative connections and more real ones. I'm not against aspiration, I just miss originality. I miss conversations that are honest and unfiltered, and I miss living in a world where connection wasn't transactional, where people showed up without an agenda. 

With love,

Roshni