Okay, so people are talking about Ben Simmons maybe retiring. Seeing that stuff pop up really got me thinking, took me back actually.
It reminds me of this time I had this job, wasn’t basketball obviously, but man, the pressure felt kinda similar in a weird way. I was working in sales, right? And my numbers were usually pretty good, top of the team some months. Then we got this new manager, and suddenly everything changed. It felt like every single call, every meeting, was under a microscope. My numbers dipped a bit, just a normal fluctuation, but the way they reacted? You’d think the world was ending.
Suddenly, stuff I used to do easy felt impossible. Like making simple follow-up calls. I’d just stare at the phone. Sounds dumb, I know. But the confidence was just gone. Poof. It felt like everyone was just waiting for me to fail, whispering about it. My boss, even some colleagues I thought were friends. It messed with my head big time.
Thinking About Walking Away
I started dreading going to work. Sunday nights were the worst. That feeling in my stomach… horrible. I seriously thought about just quitting. Not even finding another job first, just walking away. Like retiring from that whole career path. It felt like the only way to make the pressure stop. To stop feeling like a total screw-up every single day.
I spent weeks just turning it over in my head. Go in, try to push through? Or just call it quits, preserve what little sanity I had left? It wasn’t about the money at that point, not really. It was about the mental weight. It was crushing.
In the end, I did leave. Found something else, much lower key. Took a pay cut, sure, but my peace of mind? Way more valuable. Took me a while to get my confidence back, even in the new place.
So, when I see the Ben Simmons stuff… yeah, he makes crazy money, plays a game. Easy to sit back and judge. But I kinda get a glimpse of that pressure cooker. When something you were great at suddenly feels foreign, and everyone’s watching you struggle with the basics… it’s rough. You start questioning everything. The idea of just stopping, making it all go away, it makes a certain kind of sense when you’re deep in that hole. Doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong, just that I kinda get where that thought process might come from, based on my own little experience.
