WE are now halfway through 2025, and a familiar anxiety begins to creep in. The kind that whispers, "You should’ve done more by now."
The calendar flips to June, and suddenly, everything feels urgent. Deadlines, diets, unfinished thesis, unread books. Our resolutions sit somewhere between guilt and denial, collecting digital dust like unpaid Shopee carts.
Then comes the spiral. "It’s already June and I’ve achieved nothing."
Let me stop you right there. You are not alone. In fact, you are in excellent company. (Count me in!)
A close friend of mine, currently doing her PhD, messaged me last week. She was panicking. "It’s already June and I’ve barely written anything," she said.
I didn’t laugh at her. I laughed with her, because I have been there. I remember feeling the same way during my own doctorate.
Doctoral studies don’t follow neat semester structures. They run on a long, merciless clock that reminds you of what phase you are supposed to be in every year.
Data collection. Analysis. Writing. Submission.
The moment you fall behind that timeline, it starts to feel like you are not just behind in your work. You are behind in life. And when the university says, "trust the process," they usually mean "please don’t ask us how to fix this."
This kind of pressure is not unique to academia. We are trained to treat our lives like progress reports. If the scale has not moved, the career ladder has not shifted, or the productivity tracker is blank, we convince ourselves we are failing.
But real life does not move in perfect checklists. Sometimes it meanders. Sometimes it pauses. Sometimes it looks like you lying flat on your back, watching cooking videos while telling yourself it’s a form of self-care.
Social media doesn’t help. Everyone else seems to be sprinting ahead. By June, people are posting milestones and making "first half of the year in review" slideshows.
Meanwhile, some of us are just trying to remember where we kept our 2025 planner. But let me say this. Most people post the outcome, not the chaos that came with it.
They will show you the certificate, not the crying in the car before the viva voce. They will show you the gym selfie, not the roti bom they had 30 minutes later. Don’t let highlights convince you that you are behind.
So what if your goals are still a mess. Maybe your priorities shifted. Maybe your health took a hit. Maybe the world did what the world always does and gave you a detour. That is not failure. That is being alive.
This June, I am not here to sell hustle culture. I am here to remind you that pausing is allowed. Taking stock is healthy. Changing your mind is powerful.
And before I forget, I need to lose weight. Again. As usual. Every year.
If you are still worried that you haven’t done enough, just remember this. Retailers are out here throwing mid-year sales just for surviving six months of the year. If they can knock 70 percent off a blender and call it progress, then surely you can cut yourself some slack. Even the best Shopee deals take time to ship.
Treat your life like a good mid-year deal. Still valuable. Slightly delayed. But absolutely worth it.
Muhammad Naim Muhamad Ali, PhD, also known by the moniker Naim Leigh, is a Communication and Media Studies lecturer at the University of Wollongong Malaysia. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.