I’m already 27 and the 9-5 grind has already sucked the soul out of me. Is this it?
I’ve(27m) been at this for a few years now and I’ve officially hit a wall. I remember being in my early twenties thinking I’d be this driven, ambitious guy, but now I’m just a corporate zombie. I spend forty hours a week staring at spreadsheets and sitting in meetings that could have been an email, only to commute home and be too mentally drained to even talk to my girlfriend or go to the gym.
It’s like I’m stuck in this loop where my entire existence is just "recovering" from work. I spend my Saturdays in a daze and my Sundays filled with pure dread for Monday morning. I’m only 27 and I already feel like my spark is completely gone. My dad tells me to just suck it up and that "everyone hates their job," but I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I have forty more years of this ahead of me.
I feel like I’m wasting the best years of my life building someone else's dream while I’m too tired to even have my own. Does it ever actually get better, or do you just get used to the numbness? I really need some advice on how to find a balance before I just completely check out. I don't want to look back at 30 and realize I spent three years just staring at a monitor and waiting for 5:00 PM.