Welcome to the Pause Project

Living in a fast moving world full of noise with something constantly tugging at your mind, it's common to wind up trying to terminate this twitch in our consciousness without excavating the roots. Consumerism: “You NEED this!”, information: “Real or fake?”, social media “Ping!”. Personally, this overwhelming feeling leads me to an exhausting emotional depletion. However, I have found that a temporary halt, a brief break, a pause, is what allows me to descend into my mind and reconnect with the stillness underneath the surface noise. In this space, clarity and creativity quietly reside.

As a high school student, I feel pressured to overachieve. I must go out every weekend, have an infinite GPA, visit every country, and the list goes on. While having a GPA worth Pi sounds safe, the pressure of ticking off every milestone on our bucket lists and posting it with the perfect filter is suffocating. My first year of high school, this paralysing noise almost pushed me to the edge of burnout. It made me wonder: “Why do we fear being still? Why does silence feel like failure? Why do we need to prove that we’re always achieving, always thriving, always 'on”? This curiosity led me to the topic of psychology. I discovered a world where everything finally made sense.

So, I welcome you to The Pause Project - a space to reconnect, quiet down the noise, and rediscover what it means to thrive, not just perform. What happens when we stop running, even for a moment? Let’s find out together.