Three years into my banking career and I am exhausted in a way that I cannot explain with the word "tired". It\'s not that I need sleep — I could sleep twelve hours and wake up feeling exactly the same way. It\'s more like... all the colour has drained out of everything. Things that used to excite me don\'t. Things that used to be hard feel impossible. I\'m going through motions I can\'t remember choosing.
I keep wondering if this is just what adulthood is. If everyone around me is secretly running on empty and just hiding it better. When I look at colleagues who seem energetic and engaged, I can\'t tell if they\'re genuinely fine or just better at performing fine than I am.
I also wonder if I\'m weak. If the solution is simply to push harder, adjust my expectations, stop being so precious about feeling fulfilled. My parents\' generation worked harder than this and didn\'t talk about burnout — they just worked. Maybe the problem is me.
But then I look at what three years of this has done to my body (weight changes, constant colds, jaw that I apparently clench at night) and my relationships (I cancel on friends constantly, I have nothing left to give anyone after work) and I think: this cannot be normal. Can it? Has anyone been here? What did you do?