Sleep is for the weak. Failure is a choice. There is only success, and those too lazy to achieve it. I lived for the stress. If you weren’t stressed, you weren’t challenged. And if you weren’t challenged, you weren’t going places. That’s the kind of mantra I fed myself.
The first time I had work on a Saturday, I complained about it halfheartedly to my friends. Internally, I was thrilled at being important enough to be called to work. Wow. They need me. They depend on me. How naive. For an ambitious, type A person like me, it was a weirdly addictive high — overworking.
I pushed myself to always be better than everyone around me. I took pride in how early I woke up, in how many different things I could successfully juggle, in how busy I was being busy. Hustle, hustle, hustle. I felt I was made for the rat race. Then again, I was also foolish enough to believe I could beat it and win— aren’t we all at some point?
“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” WarGames (1983)
2. lost in ‘what if’
There were a lot of things I genuinely loved about the job. And for awhile, they sufficed to keep me tolerant of all the things which truly bothered me about it. It was a fear of missing out, of losing out on something great, of screwing up a good thing, that slowly dissolved any intent I had to change the situation.
It always got better too. Every time I considered moving on to something new, my role grew. In the midst of high turnover, I outlasted my peers. It was promotion after promotion. Responsibilities on top of more responsibilities. I caved each time, and I stayed. It was easier.
That didn’t stop me from daydreaming, though — fantasizing, if we’re being completely honest — about quitting and disappearing into the sunset. In hindsight, I should have recognized that as a bad sign. One that should have never been justified. But hey, they say good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that has to come from bad judgement.