Yesterday, something at work frustrated me. Nothing dramatic. I had my own deliverables, things I needed to finish, and suddenly I had to adjust my priorities and pick up something else.

Normally, I would just do it and move on.

But this time, I kept thinking about it.

I started thinking about how normal it has become to constantly adjust. Another deadline. Another urgent request. Another thing that somehow needs to get done. We talk so much about boundaries and work-life balance, but sometimes I wonder how that actually works when the work still needs to go somewhere.

And this is where I honestly envy Gen Z sometimes.

I admire how they can say, “Work is not my whole life.” And they're right. It shouldn't be.

I just wish I knew how to do that too.

Because sometimes when someone says no, logs off, or decides something can wait, the work doesn't disappear. Someone else picks it up.

And somehow, I keep being that someone.

Maybe it's how I was raised. Work hard. Be dependable. Do your best. Keep going and eventually it'll pay off.

I've lived by that for most of my life.

And yesterday somehow made me think about the biggest risk I've taken because I believed in that.

A year ago, I walked away from something secure for an opportunity I believed could become something more. And the thing is, I love what I do. I still do. That's why I took the risk in the first place.

I knew I was giving things up. I knew there would be uncertainty. But I believed that if I worked hard, proved what I could do, and kept showing up, eventually the uncertainty would be worth it.

I'm still waiting.

And maybe that's the frustrating part. It's not the work itself. It's everything around it. The waiting. The uncertainty. A process that sometimes feels like it has no clear direction while I'm trying to trust that eventually, things will fall into place.

And that's when my thoughts stopped being just about yesterday.

I started thinking about everything. The career I've built. The choices I've made. The responsibilities I have now. The bills that don't stop because I'm questioning my life choices. 😂 The security I gave up. And how different taking a risk feels when you're no longer at an age where you only have yourself to think about.

I can't just crash out and say, “Screw this, I'm done.”

I wish I could sometimes. 😂

But I can't.

So I keep showing up. I keep adjusting. I keep doing the work. And I still love the work.

I just keep hoping that the choices I've made will eventually make sense.

Maybe I'm not losing motivation.

Maybe I'm just tired of working so hard to build a stable life and still feeling like stability is always one more sacrifice away.

I wasn't always like this.

There was a time when I trusted myself. I could make decisions without replaying them over and over in my head. I wasn't constantly wondering if I had said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing, or somehow wasn't enough.

Then life happened.

Certain words were thrown at me, words that may have meant nothing to the people who said them, but somehow they stayed with me. I didn't realize it at the time, but they slowly changed the way I saw myself.

This isn't about my parents. It's about the people whose words quietly became the voice inside my own head.

I don't think about those moments every day. Most days, I'm okay. I laugh, I work, I keep moving forward. But every now and then, those words find their way back, and suddenly I'm questioning myself again.

They made me feel like I always had something to prove. Like I had to work harder, do more, and never make mistakes just to be worthy. Even now, I catch myself overthinking the simplest things. I replay conversations, wonder if I said too much or too little, and question whether I was enough.

The hardest part is that people rarely realize the weight of the words they throw at someone. They move on. They forget. But the person who received those words sometimes carries them for years.

I'm learning to let go of that weight. It's not easy. Healing isn't about pretending those words never hurt. It's about reminding myself, over and over again, that someone else's opinion doesn't have to become my truth. And maybe one day, the voice I hear the most won't be the one that made me doubt myself, but my own, telling me that I've always been enough.