17/10/2025
You can give your all to work-
come early, stay late,
skip meals, skip sleep,
say yes when your body whispers no.
You can pour every ounce of yourself
into deadlines, reports, and titles
until there’s nothing left but exhaustion
disguised as dedication.
And still,
when you fall sick,
when you burn out,
when you finally break -
the emails will continue to arrive,
the meetings will still go on,
and your chair,
the one you sat in for years,
will quietly be filled by someone new.
But your friends will remember
the laughter you never had time for.
Your family will feel
the dinners you missed,
the hugs you postponed
for “just one more task.”
You cannot die for a job
that will hold a replacement before your body grows cold.
You owe yourself more than that-
rest, peace, time to breathe.
Work is only a part of living,
not the reason for it.
Because at the end,
when the office lights dim
and your name fades from the records,
the world that truly matters
is the one waiting for you at home.