Bakeries Are Many, But Bread Is Scarce.

Something has shifted in me over the past year.

I have been more engaged in counselling now more than ever. Heavy, consistent, patient counselling, and somewhere in the middle of it, my capacity seems to have expanded. I couldn't do this years ago. But, now, it's effortless.

I can sit with a person for hours without watching the clock. I follow up on people for weeks, months and now running into years, tracking their progress the way a farmer tracks rain. 

How I have sustained this through the relentless grind of clinical postings and my extracurriculars, I genuinely cannot explain. What I can tell you is that this is the first blog post I have written in over a year. That is how consumed I became.

But this post is not about me. It is about something I keep seeing, everywhere I turn.

There are many bakeries. But bread is scarce.

Let me explain.

People are bleeding quietly. They carry questions about their lives, their faith, their circumstances, their futures. It's those kind of problems and questions that carry enormous weight. Everyone looks fine, until you hear their problems.

 A man's problem is, at its root, a product of his ignorance. Give him the right answer, and his life begins to reorganise itself. I have seen this happen a couple of times.

Content is everywhere. Platforms are full. Voices are multiplying by the hour. And yet, when a person sits down with a real problem, a private, aching, specific problem, most of what the internet offers them is noise dressed in good lighting. Shallow answers. Motivational seasoning sprinkled over unaddressed wounds. Answers that only dress the wounds but cannot heal them.

The bakeries are open. But nobody is making bread. Answers are scarce. Knowledge is scarce. People are fainting.

I will confess something. I cannot be everyone's saviour, and I have long stopped trying to wear that title. What I do, I do as a steward of grace extended to me, not as a hero, not as a brand. 

But even within those honest limits, I have felt the sting of gaps I could not close. I have met people at exactly the right moment and watched something turn for them through my answers. I have also met people I could not reach in time, and life, being what it is, did not wait. I've seen lives collapse because I couldn't give quick answers. Guilt is a legitimate feeling in those moments. I will not pretend otherwise.

What troubles me is this: when I cannot help someone directly(usually due to time constraints these days) I want to refer them. Point them somewhere. Say, "Go and speak to this person, sit under this voice." But when I ask myself two questions. Does this person have an answer? Does he/she have the time for this folk? These two questions reduce my sample size drastically. People with the answers are scarce. So, there's an urgent need for an upgrade.

The bakeries are everywhere. The bread is almost nowhere.

What the world is starving for is not more content. It is clarity. People who will sit with a problem long enough to actually understand it, and then speak to it with precision. No superficial branding. No clever packaging. Just the answer, delivered plainly, cutting exactly where it needs to cut.

That requires depth. It requires the willingness to go beneath the surface when everyone else is decorating it. Digging deep. Digging the jewels. Reading and learning for long. Spending long quiet hours in meditation.

So I ask, not rhetorically: are you one of them? Are you willing to go deep?

Because the bakeries are already crowded. What is missing is someone who actually knows how to make bread. And if you find those answers, the world will come running after you!

Will you give answers to those around you? Should the world be expecting answers from you or we should wait for another?