It’s Friday at 5 PM. Everyone’s logging off. But you’re already planning to work tonight. Maybe tomorrow too. I need to tell you something that sounds impossible: You don’t have to work nights and weekends. Not to succeed. You just don’t.
Category: Mental Health
Letter to My Younger Self: It’s Okay to Say No
Tomorrow your manager will ask if you can take on one more thing. You’ll say yes. Because you always say yes. Because no feels like letting people down. I need to tell you: It’s okay to say no. Sometimes it’s the only thing that will save you.
Letter to My Younger Self: You’re Not a Fraud
You just got the job offer. Instead of celebrating, you’re terrified. Convinced they made a mistake. That you’ll be exposed as a fraud within days. I need you to hear this: You’re not a fraud. You never were.
Letter to My Younger Self: About Burnout I Didn’t See Coming
Hey younger me – you think burnout won’t happen to you. You’re 25, energetic, passionate. You can work 12-hour days easily. I need to tell you something: you’re wrong. And I wish someone had warned me.
When You Stop Caring: Understanding Compassion Fatigue
Another urgent message. The site is down. Your heart doesn’t race. No adrenaline. Just… nothing. You used to care about every bug. Now you’re just going through motions. Compassion fatigue took what you had left.
When Your Brain Goes Blank: Navigating Creative Block
You’re staring at the problem. You know what needs doing. But your mind is blank. Yesterday you solved complex problems effortlessly. Today you can’t start something simple. Your brain went on strike.
Ten Feet to Work: The Isolation of Remote Development
It’s Thursday. Or Tuesday? You haven’t had a real conversation in days. Just Slack and Zoom calls where everyone’s muted. Remote work promised freedom. It gave you isolation instead.
Everyone’s Winning But You: The Career Anxiety Spiral
It’s midnight and you’re scrolling LinkedIn. Everyone your age just made principal engineer. Got a FAANG job. Launched something viral. Meanwhile you’re wondering if you’re falling behind. If it’s too late.
The Ideas You Never Share: Overcoming Fear of Failure
You have a good idea but don’t speak up. What if it’s stupid? What if you look incompetent? So you stay quiet. Someone else proposes it later and everyone loves it. Fear just cost you.
The Perfectionist’s Prison: When Good Code Isn’t Good Enough
You’ve been refactoring the same function for two hours. It works. It’s tested. But it’s not perfect. So you keep polishing while the deadline slides past and perfection never quite arrives.
