Sometimes I’m baffled by my own coworkers on how they just trash their health. They spend day in and day out just grinding it out to ensure we deliver our client deliverables. We don’t really get anything in return outside the usual half-assed, “good work”, and “let’s do this again next week”. At times, I just wonder how deeply ingrained this culture of grind has become.

These coworkers can get very passive-aggressive—myself included—because of how stressful the environment is and how demanding it can be. The weird part is that the moment you start winding down, you already feel internally that you aren’t doing much and that you might be in trouble for not contributing.

I think it is crazy.

Think about it for a second. Your tasks are over, you wind down for 3-4 days and start getting anxious that you aren’t receiving any more tasks. That itself is a crazy behavior. I’ve had that happen to me a lot where I am managing a lot of things and then suddenly there’s no noise anywhere. Everything’s been resolved, everything’s quiet, and it is just me and my intrusive thoughts.

Which brings me to… work culture. I’d like to think that I do a good job fostering a healthy culture. Except for me. I keep tabs on everyone, except for me. I ensure everyone is not overloaded, except for me.

There’s a weird pattern I have achieved over the years. It is that I don’t see myself as part of the equation, even though I am always there and I can’t stop moving. It’s very hard for me to explain at the moment, I guess.

It is hard to recognize the importance of when to wind down and just take a breather.