Wake Up Calls
Originally written on Sunday, November 9, 2025
Covered in thick warm blanket to shield me from 22-degree Celsius chill, the phone rang. Breakfast is ready to serve. The hotel staff reminded me and my girlfriend the day before that breakfast is served until 10:00AM, and they'll do wake up calls so we won't miss it⸻ free breakfast, how can we miss it?
The phone ring is indeed loud enough to wake us up. Since this is a wellness hotel, our routine includes breathwork, meditation, massage, sauna, and some stretching. Paired with fresh air, secluded location, Himalayan salt room, a book, and a promise to myself that I will use my phone less during this trip.
Finally, for once, I felt like I'm not running out of time, like I'm really meant for a slow life, and I was meant for things that has space for rumination and long process. "Quick" doesn't make sense to my brain.
I made the mistake of pulling my phone out of the vault to check some notifications. I've read something that is meant for Monday Jesh (and for previous weekday Jesh, but I've been too anxious to even open work-related notifications, I ended up being avoidant and just dealing things one by one when I can). Anxiety skyrocketed up to the tallest mountains of Calatagan, Batangas⸻ where our hotel resides. That one calendar invite single-handedly undid all the relaxation I've acquired from this hotel as easy as Ctrl+Z.
And then it hit me, even in the most zen place I've been to and my job can still fuck up my bearings, maybe it's a sign⸻ a wake up call louder than our room's landline phone ring. I'm quitting.
I got back to work and expressed that all I feel about work is pressure and anxiety. My judgment is cloudy so I can't really say final-final that I'm considering quitting. I always go back to the question if I believe in the mission. Yes I do. Then nothing to talk about I guess, adjourned.
But I always end up repeating the cycle of avoiding everything because deep down believing in the mission is not enough when the "How" is no longer aligned with me. The pressure keeps eating me up, it's no longer working but it's hard to gather up some courage to say it during meetings, because I keep believing that whatever I am going through, can be solved by going for a walk and getting sunlight. But at the end of the day, it's not.
Let me paraphrase a quote I recently came across.
The reason people hire you in the first place is that you enjoy your shit. If pressure kills that spark in your eyes, the reason they hired you stops existing.
Exactly. I can no longer bounce-back to how I perform before because pressure already took over and it's too late.
A random Sunday evening about 11:00 PM I sent a scheduled notice of resignation meant to deliver first thing the next day. I really thought about having a conversation first but I felt like I'll just continue the cycle of tearing up during meetings and nothing I can do about it anymore. I unconsciously gave up long before I can accept.
A feeling that I am still trying to shake is that I am leaving this job and they will remember me as ineffective, incompetent, and unprofessional. But I know deep down I'm not entirely that so I won't let that affect my inner monologue. I've seen it. In other places and circumstances, I am praised for being communicative, efficient, and excellent⸻ I can do it all and the house is well-kept, have time to read, watch films, meet friends, do hobbies, and WHILE recovering from burnout. I kind of gave up figuring out why I can't apply that across the board.
I am fine with me taking this long to realize and to make good terms with everything because experience gained is still a time well spent. I think I'm more concerned with I wasted other people's time and resources like it's my fault.