A heartfelt look at burnout and the emotional cost of surviving in Malaysia, where many feel overwhelmed, tired and too drained to speak.
NOTHING. That’s the word stuck in my throat this whole week – heavy, stubborn and refusing to budge no matter how hard I try.
When people ask what I’m writing about, I whisper the same brave little lie: “Working on it”. But the truth is, I’m not working on anything.
Sometimes the truth is simpler: I have nothing. And maybe this is the most honest thing I have written all year.
It’s December, and it is the usual kind in Malaysia – the rain that refuses to quit, the roads that flood without warning and the sky that hangs low and bruised. Everywhere I go, people look tired though most won’t admit. It’s the kind of exhaustion you can’t sleep off – the kind that settles behind your eyes and stays.
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Maybe that is why I have nothing to say because nothing does not only mean emptiness; sometimes it means overflow – the soul carrying too much for too long until it shuts itself down in self-defence.
I’m supposed to be insightful. I’m supposed to watch the world and transform it into meaning. But lately, everything feels blurred. The days bleed into one another – deadlines, traffic, bills, groceries, school runs, therapies, lunch boxes, meetings and more bills. Life has become one long checklist. The rhythm is still there but the music is gone.
Malaysians don’t talk about this part; we talk about prices, about policies, about politicians who behave like performers. But we don’t talk about the emotional cost of surviving all this; the cost of pretending we are coping when our hearts are cracking; the cost of smiling so people don’t worry, the cost of carrying families, finances, futures – all while trying not to fall apart.
Maybe “nothing” is the most Malaysian feeling right now – the nothing that comes from constant worry, the nothing that comes from holding back tears for the sake of the children, the nothing that comes from working so hard and still feeling inadequate – the nothing that sits in your chest like a borrowed grief you can’t name.
Let me say the part we rarely admit: There are days when I look at my children and feel a fear I can’t articulate. A fear of being inadequate. A fear of the world swallowing them before they can even learn how to swim.
My son – tall, curious, almost a young man – asks me questions I don’t quite know how to answer. “Why is life so stressful for adults?” he asked recently. How do you answer that without breaking something tender inside yourself?
My daughter – sweet, sensitive, navigating a world that doesn’t always know how to hold her – looks at me with a trust that says I can protect her. I want to and try to . But some nights, I lie awake wondering if love is enough in a country that still hasn’t learned how to welcome children who don’t fit its rigid mould.
And in between all this, there is work, expectations, roles and the endless performance of being “fine”. We Malaysians are experts at pushing through pain. We apologise when other people bump into us. We say “never mind” even when our hearts are breaking. We swallow our struggles like bitter pills because we were raised to believe vulnerability is an inconvenience. And so, “nothing” emerges – the emotional shutdown, the numbness, the quiet collapse.
I know many of you reading this feel it too. Maybe you’re sitting in your car staring out at the rain, wondering why life feels so heavy. Maybe you’re scrolling in the dark after putting the kids to bed, your heart beating too loudly in your chest. Maybe you’re in the office where everyone looks alive but feels half-dead inside. Maybe you, too, have nothing left.
So here is something you may need to hear: “Nothing” is not weakness, “nothing” is not failure, “nothing” is not a flaw. “Nothing” is your spirit whispering, “Enough, please”.
Nothing is the body’s way of asking for mercy. Nothing is a pause you didn’t choose but desperately need. Nothing is the truth rising to the surface, a reminder that you were never meant to carry everything alone.
We are so used to performing that we forget this: Even a tired heart deserves rest, even a cracked soul deserves gentleness and even a weary Malaysian deserves softness in a country that keeps demanding hardness.
So this week, instead of pretending to have something profound, I’m giving you my nothing – raw, unfiltered, trembling. And maybe, if I’m lucky, it mirrors something silent inside you too.
If all you have left is nothing, then let that be your beginning. Let nothing be the quiet, painful room where you finally put everything down. Let nothing be the moment you breathe again. Because even nothing can bloom, even nothing can soften and even nothing can grow into hope – if we dare to rest long enough to feel human again.
And if today all you can say is “I’m tired but I’m still here”, then that alone is enough.
Hashini Kavishtri Kannan is the assistant news editor at theSun.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
