“I might be one of the hairs.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about something that makes me a little uncomfortable to admit.

Some days I look at the future and all I see is this structure: wake up, work 8 hours, go home, sleep, repeat. And when I imagine doing that for decades, something in my brain just freezes.

I caught myself thinking: if the rest of my life is just this same 8-hour workday repeating forever, sometimes I almost wish those decades could just be compressed into a single day. Work the 8 hours… and then it’s over.

I don’t mean that in a dramatic way. It’s more like a strange thought experiment about time and meaning.

Yesterday my mood score was lower but I felt okay. Today my score was higher but I felt worse, probably because I started questioning the whole structure of working life.

Then I saw a post online about someone who lives a completely different life. Her family supports her, she lives in a beautiful house, doesn’t have to work, wakes up naturally, someone cooks for her, and she writes novels that make around 30k a month.

The post itself was actually about something bizarre: she believes a writing partner tried to “borrow her luck” by putting a red cloth and strands of hair inside a cardboard package.

I know I would never harm anyone. But when I read that story, a strange thought crossed my mind: if envy had a physical form, maybe I would just be one of those hairs.

Not the whole act, not the malice—just that tiny thread of jealousy.

I keep reminding myself that someone else having something doesn’t mean it was taken from me. But sometimes it’s hard not to compare.

I’m curious if other people ever feel this kind of quiet existential pressure about work and time.