Stress is a bill, not a mood

Nobody's calendar has a meeting called “burnout”. It arrives on schedule anyway, because stress doesn't work like weather — it works like billing. Every crunch week, every skipped lunch, every automatic “I'm fine” is a small charge, and the invoice compounds quietly.

The tricky part: the early symptoms don't look like stress. They look like forgetting small things, snapping at slow elevators, waking up tired after eight full hours. By the time it looks like stress, you're deep in the red.

The good news is the account works both ways. Recovery isn't a vacation twice a year — it's small regular deposits: real breaks, real sleep, one honest conversation, an hour with no input at all.

You can't negotiate the bill down. You can only pay it in small installments — or all at once, with interest.