I don’t remember exactly when it happened. There wasn’t a moment. No decision I sat down and made. It just… slipped away. The need to explain. It used to come so naturally. Filling in the gaps. Clarifying what I meant. Making sure I wasn’t misunderstood. I kept doing this over and over. Second guessing. Checking that what I said didn’t translate the wrong way with the other person. Not because I was unsure of myself. But because I thought that’s what you do when you care about being understood. So I would explain. Gently. Patiently. Sometimes even before I was asked. Just to make things easier. But somewhere along the way… I noticed something. The people who really wanted to understand me… never needed that much explaining. And the ones who didn’t? No amount of explaining ever seemed to reach them. Or they just didn’t care. So I started pausing. Not intentionally at first. Just… noticing the space between what I felt and what I was about to say. And s...