The Tax on Seeing Patterns

You saw it coming.

Not because you’re psychic. Not because you’re smarter than anyone else in the room. But because you noticed what nobody wanted to notice. The misalignment between what was being said and what was being done. The slow drift. The quiet rot behind the fresh paint.

And you said something.

Maybe not loudly. Maybe you framed it carefully because you’ve learned that how you deliver truth matters more than the truth itself. Maybe you softened it so much it barely landed. Or maybe you said it plainly and watched the room rearrange itself around the discomfort of being seen.
Either way, you were right. And being right cost you more than being wrong ever would have.

That’s the tax.

The tax on seeing patterns is that people don’t thank you for the warning. They resent you for the disruption. They call you negative. Difficult. Not a team player. They would rather walk into the wall than admit someone saw it first.

And over time, the tax changes you. You start asking yourself whether the pattern is even real. You start editing your own perception. You start wondering if the problem is your eyes, not the thing you’re looking at.

It’s not your eyes.

The pattern was real every single time. The room just wasn’t ready for someone who sees at that resolution.

Stop apologizing for your clarity. It was never the problem. The silence around you was.