I Saw Past the Invisible Leash

Preface

There are stories that diagnose an age, and others that exhume it.
This collection is one of the latter.

Together, these narratives trace the erosion of selfhood in modern work, the subtle extraction of time, attention, and energy, and the quiet art of reclaiming agency, autonomy, and vitality. Wellness here is not indulgence—it is resistance. Freedom is not aspiration—it is maintenance.

Read not as argument, but as awakening.

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There was a woman in our office. Let’s call her Diane.

Fifteen years in, still running on the same treadmill. Never a late report, never an outburst, never a single step outside the company line. She knew the systems better than management did, but she wasn’t management. She was reliable—the corporate equivalent of background music.

Then, one Friday, she was gone.

Not because she wanted to be. Because the numbers said so.

A restructuring. A redundancy. A realignment of company priorities.

By Monday morning, her name was wiped from the system. Like she had never been there. No farewell. No thank-you. No moment of reflection.

We watched it happen in real time. And then we turned back to our screens.

That was the worst part.

The way we all just… accepted it. As if it had nothing to do with us.

And maybe it didn’t—until the moment I realised it did.

Because if Diane—fifteen years, spotless record, did-everything-right Diane—could disappear overnight, what did that say about the rest of us?

What did that say about me?

Suddenly, every late night, every missed holiday, every “I’ll do it first thing Monday” felt like a bad investment. I had traded time, energy, and peace of mind for… what, exactly?

A salary? A title? The illusion of security?

For the first time, I really saw it—the full, ugly truth:

Loyalty here was a liability.

Not an asset. Not something that paid off. Just a slow, willing erosion of self for a company that would never return the favour.

And yet, I stayed.

Not because I wanted to. Because I didn’t know what else to do.

That’s when I noticed them.

The ones who had left—not just quit, but walked away with purpose. They weren’t burnt out, bitter, or looking over their shoulders. They were free.

At first, I resented them. It was easier than admitting I envied them.

But resentment makes you curious. It makes you ask why them and not me?

So I asked. And I listened.

And the more I learned, the angrier I became.

Because the way out had been there all along. But I had been too busy keeping my head down to see it.

They talked about choice. About owning their time. About building something that paid them back for every ounce of effort.

It sounded impossible. It sounded like a scam.

It sounded exactly like what every employer hopes you’ll believe.

The moment came in a place I least expected—a dinner table.

I was sitting across from an old colleague. Someone who, years ago, had been right where I was. Trapped.

Now? They looked light. No tension in the shoulders. No frantic phone-checking. No half-dead stare from another week of back-to-back meetings.

I told them I felt stuck. That I couldn’t just leave a paycheck behind.

They laughed. Not at me—at the idea.

“You think you have security? Tell me—how many paychecks stand between you and disaster?”

I did the math. Two.

Two months before everything would unravel.

“That’s not security,” they said. “That’s a leash.”

And that’s when it hit me.

I wasn’t staying because I was safe. I was staying because I was scared.

I had spent years gripping a ledge I was already slipping from.

And then they said something else. Something that made me stop thinking about the problem and start seeing the solution.

“Do you actually want to build something? Or do you just want to complain?”

Because the answer to that question changed everything.

It wasn’t a recruitment pitch. It wasn’t a presentation.

It was a conversation.

And it was about more than money.

It was about freedom. About taking control of what I had always assumed was fixed—my income, my time, my choices.

They didn’t sell me on a product. They showed me a reality.

A system that didn’t punish effort with exhaustion but rewarded it with growth.

A model where success wasn’t about appeasing a boss but about real results, direct rewards, and complete ownership of my time.

And the part that hit me hardest?

They weren’t special.

No silver spoons. No lucky breaks. No secret talent. Just people—real people—who had seen the same dead-end I was staring at and said, no more.

I watched them order another drink, completely at ease, their phone untouched on the table.

Then I thought about Diane.

Fifteen years of perfect work, erased in a weekend.

That’s when I knew.

Because if I kept doing what I was doing, I already knew where I’d end up. Diane had already shown me.

So I made the call.

I wasn’t quitting. I was reclaiming.

Because the truth is, Diane didn’t disappear overnight.

She disappeared slowly.

One year at a time.
One deadline at a time.
One compromise at a time.

Until there was nothing left.

And I refused to be next.



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