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.