The pace that isn't yours

There's a speed the room runs at, and you can feel it pulling you along. The line moves faster every shift and nobody says stop. The ward is short three nurses, so you skip lunch again. The dispatch board never empties, the inbox refills the second you clear it, the group chat pings past midnight. None of it is your pace. It's the crowd's, and the crowd never tires, because the crowd isn't a body. You are.

Seneca pulled back from public life on purpose, and took some heat for it. His defense (Letters 8, paraphrase) was that stepping out of the throng wasn't quitting — it was the only way to do work that lasted, instead of being ground down by the mob's appetite for more. Withdraw enough to keep your own footing. Otherwise the pace eats you, and then you're no use to anyone.

This is the week's move, and it begins with seeing: the pace around you is not a law. Burnout rarely arrives as a crash. It arrives as a speed you agreed to without choosing, one small yes to faster at a time.

You can match a machine for a while. You cannot match it forever, and pretending you can is the first crack.