how I turned myself into a zombie
#page4
02.03.2025
The process is simple, too simple. Just sleep less. Or better yet, not at all. Skip meals. Forget water. Push your body to its limits. Keep going, even when everything in you screams to stop.
I know because I did it.
For the past two years, it was as if I had made it my goal to work as much as humanly possible. If time could be borrowed, I would’ve taken a loan. If it could be bought, I’d be bankrupt. That’s how deep I was in. The only thing that could have stopped me was a full-blown zombie apocalypse.
Most people start their mornings with a walk, a workout, or at least a proper breakfast.
Me? I went straight to emails. Straight to meetings. Straight into a back-to-back schedule with no room to breathe. Work. More work. And then some more, just in case.
I slipped into a weird phase, where I was technically awake, functioning, but utterly drained. I was responding to messages, meeting deadlines, showing up. But my soul? It was running three days behind.
And the worst part?
No one even asked me to do it.
Nobody cares how you get things done, just that you do. Nobody asks if you’ve eaten, if you’ve slept, if you’ve seen sunlight in the past week. They just want the work.
I knew that. I had always known that.
But for some reason, I kept pushing, as if grinding myself into exhaustion would make me different.
Special.
And sure, people noticed. When you’re the one grinding while everyone else clocks out at six, they notice. But what did I gain? More stress. More exhaustion. More sick days than I could afford to take.
The irony hit hardest when I fell seriously ill. Too sick to work, yet all I could think about was work.
But in those fever-ridden days, something became painfully clear:
I am nothing if my body doesn’t function.
No amount of ambition can override a body running on empty.
Our bodies endure so much for us. They heal our wounds, fight our battles, and keep us alive even when we treat them like machines.
And still, I find myself caught in the same mindset, believing that pushing myself past the limit is the only way to hold everything together.
Maybe that’s the curse of people like us, the ones who live for their work, who tie their worth to what they accomplish, who don’t know how to slow down.
But here’s what I know now: You don’t have to wreck yourself to succeed.
Hard work matters, but so does balance.
At some point, we have to ask, what’s the point of achieving everything if we’re too burned out to enjoy it?
I realize now that I haven’t seen a sunrise in months. I don’t remember the last time I looked at the night sky. I’ve spent so long staring at screens, I’ve forgotten how stars shine.
I’ve been a zombie long enough. Time to come back to life.
Incredibly beautiful!
Sending healing your way.