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Breathless

13 hours, 5 days in a row.The idea used to be an anathema to me and yet here I was, slogging away from 730 to 830, until when the last of the never ending urgent reports were done, I grabbed my bag and made for the exit. The sticky note on my table at home displayed in cursive, hastily written what was to be done if I had reached home at 8.

8:00 - 8:30 Exercise
830 - 9:00 Shower, eat
9:00 - 9:30 Excel/VBA
9:30 - 10:00 Write
10:00 - 10:30 whatever

And then sleep.

Now I reached home at 9:15 with just about enough time to have dinner, make some polite conversation with my parents and head to bed before waking up the next day and repeating the whole routine again. There was either not enough time, energy or the will to exercise, learn, reflect or even just water the garden.

Not that this left me depressed. Work was engaging that the hours flew by, and after a period of prolonged unemployment, I was just thankful I had it. Though, somewhere in the deepest recesses of my heart, as I felt the neck strain and the eyes pain from staring at the lifeless screen for hours, I wondered if this routine, if sustained, would leave me physically and mentally distant from where I aspired to be. 

Was this path that I was on, a ticking time bomb?

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