The Silence at the Summit

What Machu Picchu Taught My ADHD Brain About Peace, Purpose, and People

It wasn’t meant to be that hard.

The classic Inca Trail route was closed due to a mudslide, so our group took a different path. It was steeper, longer, and utterly relentless. My knees screamed with every step. My heart rate hit 190 bpm. I could feel the altitude in my chest, my breath short, my body exhausted. But we pushed on, hour after hour, step after grueling step.

Six hours later, I reached the top of Machu Picchu.

Surrounded by ancient ruins and peaks draped in mist, I stood thousands of metres above sea level, and something inside me just… stopped.

For someone with ADHD, silence in the mind is rare. My brain usually runs at full speed—chasing thoughts, jumping between ideas, craving novelty and stimulation. I hate monotony. I live for the next chaotic adventure. But in that moment, staring out over the clouds and stone, everything went quiet.

I wasn’t bored. I wasn’t distracted. I wasn’t even thinking about the next thing.

I was… peaceful.

And in that peace, a thought hit me with surprising clarity: Life is for living, not just working.

It felt absurd to stand at the top of the world and think about KPIs, shift schedules, and retail sales targets. But that had been my life. I hadn’t taken a proper break since November. I'd been through peak trading, Black Friday, Christmas, a product launch. My personal life barely existed. I was burnt out, running on fumes.

That mountain reminded me there was more.

Then came the questions—the kind I couldn’t ignore up there:

Have I made any impact on the people I’ve met? Do my fellow travellers ever think about me? Does anyone even care about the places I’ve been? Or am I just another passing face in someone else’s story?

I think we all wonder if we matter.

Since that day, something in me has been unsettled. Not in a bad way, but in a way that signals transformation. Like I unlocked a part of myself that refuses to go back to sleep.

But returning to London was a crash.

The rhythm of the city, the pressure, the "everything needed yesterday" urgency—it felt unbearable. I didn’t want to be there. I started seeing signs for Peru everywhere: taxi ads, wallpapers, and even customers who happened to be from Peru. It felt like the universe was taunting me.

And then the darker side of ADHD kicked in.

The high faded. The post-travel blues hit. The internal voice returned: "You’re not good enough. You can’t do this. You’ll never figure it out."

I tried to outrun it with another trip—booked Athens on a whim. It was beautiful, inspiring in its own right. But it wasn’t Peru. The clarity I found on that summit didn’t come back.

What I know now is this: I’m still searching.

Searching for meaning, for connection, for something that feels bigger than the everyday. I don’t want to tick boxes on a bucket list. I want to build something. I want to write stories that matter. I want to live like a digital nomad—never settling, always exploring, and creating something that makes others feel seen.

So I’m putting this out there, from one wandering mind to whoever needs to hear it:

If you have an idea, a connection, a suggestion, or even just encouragement—I’m open. Wide open. Even if it means leaving the UK behind entirely.

Because that feeling I had on the top of that mountain?

I’m not done chasing it yet.

Aimie.