The Grind Stole My Personality. I Didn't Notice Until Now.
But I'm paying attention to it now. And I think that's where it starts.
I used to play the guitar.
I used to play the drums too. I used to go out with friends proper out, not “let me check my phone for an hour and call it socialising.” Real out. Loud. Alive.
I don’t know exactly when that stopped.
That’s the thing about the grind. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t knock on the door and say “excuse me, I’m here to take everything that made you interesting.” It just quietly shows up one day and starts replacing things. Your hobbies. Your weekends. Your ability to sit through a film without calculating what else you could be doing with two hours.
And one day you look up and you’re a different person. Productive. Focused. Driven.
Boring.
How It Happens
You start with good reasons. Everyone does.
Friends get married. Some relocate. The world hits you with that particular brand of pressure that only comes with your late twenties — the creeping awareness that time is moving and you’re not moving fast enough. You don’t want to be the broke one. The unproductive one. The one still talking about plans while everyone else is executing.
So you get a high-paying job. Good. That works for a while.
Then somehow you end up at a startup. And if you know, you know — startups don’t have a clock-out time. They have a mission. And the mission is always urgent. Always.
Then you start your own thing. AIDevelopia. Because you have a vision and the vision is real and you believe in it with every part of yourself. That part is still true.
But the vision is expensive. Not just in money. In time. In attention. In the version of yourself that used to pick up a guitar on a Tuesday evening for no reason at all.
You make money and it’s not enough. So you work more. And the more you work the more you need to work because the gap between where you are and where you’re going never seems to close fast enough.
And somewhere in that loop — you forget to come up for air.
The Moment I Caught Myself
I’ve been having this thought lately. Quietly, at first. Then louder.
How did I become so boring?
Not boring to the world. To myself. I try sometimes — I try to reach back and find the version of me that was lighter. The one who laughed easily, who picked up instruments, who didn’t calculate the ROI of a Saturday afternoon. And I find him. Briefly. But then the thoughts pile up and the to-do list comes back and I’m here again. Serious. Driven. Grinding.
I talk to myself now. Not in a worrying way. Just — processing. Working through things out loud because there’s nobody sitting across from me at the end of the day saying
“so how was it actually?”
Love, for me right now, is respect and money. That’s what I can offer. That’s what I understand. Everything else feels like a luxury I haven’t earned yet.
I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie and actually watched it. Not had it on in the background. Not half-watched it between checking Slack. Actually sat down and let myself be inside a story for two hours.
This year — not once. Last year — maybe once. The years before that I genuinely can’t recall.
Where Are We Running To?
I don’t have a clean answer to that question. I’m not sure anyone does.
But I know this. Life is moving. It is absolutely, completely, mercilessly moving. Waiting for nobody. Not for your breakthrough. Not for your platform to launch. Not for the funding to come through or the right moment to finally take a breath.
And I keep telling myself — once the grind ends, I’ll get back to myself. Once the breakthrough comes. Once AIDevelopia hits the milestone. Once things settle.
But things don’t settle. That’s not how this works. There is no finish line where you get handed back your personality and told “okay, you’ve earned the right to enjoy your life now.”
You have to choose it. While the grind is still happening. While the money still isn’t enough. While the vision is still being built.
I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. I’m being honest with you.
But I’m paying attention to it now. And I think that’s where it starts.
What I Know Is Still True
The guitar is still there.
Somewhere under the to-do lists and the roadmaps and the community plans and the product specs and the LinkedIn posts — the version of me that played music and went out and laughed without an agenda is still there.
He’s not gone. He’s just buried under a grind season that has been longer and heavier than I expected.
I can smell the breakthrough. I’ve said that before and I mean it. AIDevelopia is real, the product is real, the community is real — check out what we’re building at build.aidevelopia.com if you haven’t. This isn’t blind optimism. This is a person who has paid the price and knows what’s on the other side of it.
But I’m writing this because some of you are in this exact place.
You used to have something. A hobby, a lightness, a version of yourself that existed outside of productivity. And the grind took it — not violently, just slowly, the way a tide takes sand. And now you’re standing there wondering when you became someone who calculates the cost of a Tuesday evening.
You’re not broken. You’re in a season.
The question is whether you’re going to notice it before it’s too late to remember what you were reaching for in the first place.
I’m still figuring this out in real time.
But I’m noticing. And I’m writing it down. Because maybe that counts for something.
Stay in it.
— MBM
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This is my second attempt- I wrote a long reply and it disappeared...
This post is genuine, authentic and real! I resonate so much with it and I'm proud of you for writing it! I had that same moment you described and had to catch myself as I was getting lost in being productive all the time... I decided to allocate more time for me, not writing, not creating something, not teaching etc. I decided to do random things like after the school run, going for a walk, being in nature, spontaneously meeting up with other parents and socialising, I started gaming with my husband again, I didn't know how much I missed it! I began playing the piano again and actually picked up a book I had started over a year ago (The younger me would sigh, I always used to read books, now it's mostly online). I say all that to say, I hear you, and I believe with patience you'll get there, you'll pick up your guitar again and you'll laugh and randomly socialise. You've got this 100%!!