The Paradox of Water in a Changing World

They say water is life. It nourishes, heals, and sustains. Yet, for so many, it remains a distant privilege, a vanishing resource, a cruel mirage.

I often wonder—what if the very problem we face today could flip on its head tomorrow? What if, one day, instead of desperately seeking water, we found ourselves drowning in it? Not in lush rivers or thriving lakes, but in relentless floods, in poisoned seas, in an abundance of something we can no longer drink?

Global warming is stealing our water today, evaporating lakes, drying up fertile lands, and leaving behind cracked earth where children used to play. But what if the real tragedy is not water disappearing, but coming back in a form we cannot use? Rising seas swallowing entire coastlines, freshwater sources tainted with salt, storms dumping more water than the earth can absorb. The cruelest irony: a world that once thirsted, now drowning.

We fight wars over water now—quiet wars, disguised in corporate boardrooms, hidden in the fine print of policies that decide who gets to drink and who gets to suffer. But what if, in a few decades, the fight shifts? Not about access, but about survival in the face of an uncontrollable tide? What if the scarcity of today becomes the excess of tomorrow, and yet, somehow, we still lose?

And yet, somewhere in this mess, there is hope. Because water is a force that adapts, flows, and reshapes everything in its path. Perhaps, so can we. Perhaps, we can rewrite the story before it writes itself in waves too high to control. Perhaps we stop seeing water as something to own and start seeing it as something to honor—before nature reminds us who truly holds the power.

On this World Water Day, I hope we pause—not just to worry about the water we don’t have, but to think about the water we might one day have too much of. Because the real crisis isn’t just scarcity or excess. The real crisis is believing that we are separate from the water itself. We are made of it, shaped by it, and if we don’t act soon, undone by it.

Will we learn before it’s too late?