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SINGAPORE — “Only going home now?” the office security guard asked, as I trudged out of the building just after midnight on a Saturday night, with a stack of books and laptop in hand.
Though they were brief, I had come to treasure the conversations I had with him as the fun weekends I used to spend out with my friends had become a relentless string of nights spent staring at screens, studying and working in the office.
Last year, I was working a part-time internship position at a strategic advisory firm and contributing to a media outlet while completing my final semester at university.
This was coupled up with occasional volunteer commitments and virtual Chinese lessons to brush up my spoken Mandarin. It was all work and little or no play.
The fatigue finally caught up with me at the end of the year. I was usually able to shake off these feelings of weariness, or even at times, relish in them.
Instead, I felt riddled with self-doubt, weighed down by thoughts that I would never become the person I had so aspired to be.
Despite these feelings, I told myself that I was just tired and that so many of my peers were doing much more than me.
After all, some had school fees they had to pay off but still managed to get top grades in school, others were grappling with major personal issues but could still land internships at prestigious firms.
In the light of all this, were my feelings normal or was there something more to it?
Deep down, I knew that there was more to my twenties than late nights spent alone in the office, coffee after coffee, planning to cross the next goal off the list and the one after that, and so on.
For this column, I spoke to counsellors and mental health experts to find out more about what it means to be burnt out, how this has been perpetuated by “hustle culture” and healthy ways to address these issues.
More at https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...urn-out-hyper-competitive-environment-1962771
