Don't let work destroy your life.
I met my (soon be ex) wife 8 years ago. We loved each other and had a great time together. I got a high-pressure job a few years in that my bosses claimed would be worth it in the long run.
You know the story. I embraced the ground lifestyle. Worked late, worked weekends, worked holidays and was on vacation while my wife sat around by herself. I kept telling her it was for our future and would eventually pay off. She begged me for years to quit, said she didn't care about the money. I chose wrong.
2020 sucked for financially but I was assured by my boss that 2021 would be "amazing" for me. I worked every weekend. I worked the day of my wedding. We cut our honeymoon short so I could get back to work. I was chasing the pot of gold cause I wanted to buy her a house.
Welp. 4 months post-wedding, my wife leaves me ending our 8-year relationship. She told me I always chose work over her and didn't like what I turned into. I begged her to stay but said I just needed till the end of the year to cash out and I would quit. Nope, she left. Was tired of spending her weekends alone and felt unloved. I kept my head down and threw myself into work to try to forget and maybe find some meaning in the destruction of my marriage.
My job fucked me on my bonus and raise. Told me it was a hard year for the firm and they couldn't pay me what they promised. My marriage ended up being worth nothing.
I took 2 weeks off, came back for 1 week, and quit. I made sure they knew I blamed them and made sure to delete 6 months of work on the way out the door.
Fuck your job. Enjoy your weekends. Money won't buy you happiness. If you're lucky enough to find someone who loves you, focus on that and never let go.
JA:
You really have to find a healthy work-home balance. A job will take anything you give and look at you like they expected more. It will never be enough. So you absolutely must form your own boundaries in regards to your professional life.
It's a rough lesson to learn the hard way.
Never chase overtime. Working your regular hours is a big enough waste of your time as it is. The only thing you should be doing is finding jobs that pay you more for that time or pay you the same for less time. Overtime is a waste of life.
There's a woman I work with who takes all the overtime she is offered. She works extended hours during the weekday, works both weekend days if she can, works holidays, etc. None of it is mandatory here, all of it is completely optional. She works it because she wants to retire at 65 and move back to her home country where her large savings will go even further. She would then finally live comfortably and happily with the family she has back there who she never gets to see because she's living alone (since her husband died of Covid in 2020) in America, you know... living the American Dream.
I even saw her Friday, said goodnight to her as I was leaving for home after the shift ended. She was walking the opposite way, staying late to work that overtime I guessed.
They found her dead in her bed yesterday morning. She was 63, and I feel like the last 40 years of her life she knew nothing but working, and it ended up all for nothing.
Don't fucking waste your life on overtime guys. Capitalism leaves you with precious little life to live as it is.