I recently understood that the tiredness I had been blaming on everything else - the job, the age, the schedule, the season - was not tiredness at all, it was the specific and sustained effort of living a life that wasn't quite mine, and the moment I understood that the exhaustion had a name it became possible, for the first time, to do something about it - Silicon Canals

"The exhaustion wasn't physical. It was the weight of pretending to care about things I didn't, saying yes when I meant no, and molding myself into a shape that looked successful but felt like a costume three sizes too small."

"The exhaustion of performing someone else's life... I was stuffing myself into a box labeled 'successful professional' that had been designed by someone else entirely."

"The exhaustion wasn't from the work itself. It was from the constant, invisible effort of suppressing who I really was."

"Emotional labor and the energy required to maintain a false persona can be far more draining than the actual tasks of a job."

The feeling of exhaustion can be attributed to the emotional labor of pretending to care about unimportant matters and conforming to societal expectations. This realization came after years of feeling drained from a job that did not align with personal values. The pressure to fit into a predefined role led to a loss of authenticity and energy. Understanding this dynamic allowed for a shift in perspective, revealing that the true source of fatigue was not the work itself, but the effort to suppress one's true self.

Read at Silicon Canals