Stress Threshold

When it comes to stress, I've decided I'm a sprinter, not a long distance runner. Some people thrive on stress like most of us depend on coffee; if we have it, we're productive and satisfied, if we don't, we're irritable and worthless. And while it's not a healthy state to be wired for hyper-productivity, it's got certain enviable qualities: these people accomplish more in one year than most could get done in ten with three clones, no sleep, and a robot named Rosie.

I'm more a sprinter, I guess. I can handle large volumes of stress, dozens of sleepless nights, back to back 14 hour days, and still manage to love my work and my life- but I inevitably hit a wall somewhere around the three month mark.

The break-neck pace began for me in August and shows no sign of slowing down until Christmas is over. And just today I reached my threshold- a whole month and a half shy of the finish line. I have no choice but to continue to keep up, but sometime between midnight when I went to bed last night and 6:30 when I woke up this morning, my brain switched to auto pilot. I know from past experience that there is still one final phase of stress coming that will signify the end (one way or another): when my eye starts twitching, then it's all over...