Disclaimer:
I wrote this post with the help of ChatGPT to better express my thoughts, since I’m not very confident in my language skills. The ideas, feelings, and experiences shared here are entirely mine.
It’s Sunday night again.
That weird stretch of hours where the weekend feels like it’s quietly slipping away, and Monday is already looming in the back of your mind like a notification you can’t swipe away. I’ve been sitting with a thought: what if I just called in sick tomorrow? I could. But then again… what about next Monday, and the Monday after that?
It’s not that work is hard. It’s the opposite, actually. There’s barely anything to do. But somehow, the expectation to look busy is more exhausting than being busy. It’s like clocking into a theater production where no one remembers the plot, but we’re all still acting.
The strangest part? I’m apparently one of the best performers on my team. But only because the bar is buried somewhere underground. I’m not saying I’m thriving. I’m just below average among the worst. A quiet impostor in a room full of quiet impostors.
I’ve been thinking about whether this is sustainable. Whether it matters that I’m not learning anything. That I’m not growing. That I’m, honestly, not even that interested in the field I’m in. And then another question hit me—something simple, almost childish, but sharp enough to cut through all the mental clutter:
If there were no pressure to succeed, no expectations from anyone—what would I want to try, just out of curiosity or boredom?
And the weird thing is—I didn’t know how to answer.
It wasn’t a career question. It wasn’t about productivity. It was something more raw, more human. What lights me up, even for no reason? What have I always been curious about, but never gave myself permission to explore?
Maybe that’s the real burnout. Not overwork. But being stuck in a place where you don’t even know what you’d rather be doing. A fog that isn’t from stress, but from the absence of meaning.
I don’t have a neat conclusion to wrap this up. But maybe asking that one question, honestly, is a good place to start. Not just for tomorrow. But for whatever comes next.
