A life of constant hustle - emails, phones and texts, to the stage that even the ring of the phone led to anxiety. Mind felt like a brick and all I could think about were the targets. I have lived a fairly regimented life, a member of the 4am club, but this was different. My metrics of success were off, my mental and physical well being took a hit. A casual full body checkup was a wake up call- my liver enzyme values showed chances of chronic ailment. Not because of liquor, but stress and stress eating. My mind was no longer nimble- knowing about the world, a habit I valued, was lost. I decided to make a career change, refocus my priorities. I recovered, I was relieved. Burnout is not a myth, it's not an excuse. A balanced living - the Madhyamarg - is key to sustainable living.

Burdening yourself with work and working beyond regular working hours is often expected from you in this profession. I work like a machine and exhaust myself physically and mentally. This has led me to suffering from crippling insomnia. I usually feel tired and depressed and wish this culture of overworking was not appreciated but condemned.

A couple of years ago my life fell apart. I had no sense of what I was doing, all my focus was lost and everything made me feel depressed. To excel in my career I had cornered all the other aspects in my life and worked day and night to achieve my goals I had set for myself. In this heavy competitive world my pursuit to be the best often led me to exhaustion and stress. I had almost lost it. My family realised this before me and asked me to consult a doctor who diagnosed me with total burn out, told me to rest, and asked me to lower my expectations of myself. I am still in therapy and getting better everyday!

While growing up I was very fascinated by the lawyers. Every time I saw a lawyer’s lifestyle in a movie my faith in becoming a lawyer only got stronger. As they say, movies are only works of fiction, I realised it the day I entered law school. As a student, although I was pretty good in academics, being thorough with everything you read was a task for me. After talking to practicing lawyers and my seniors about how much work lawyers have to do has only made me more nervous. I have lost concentration and now I am confused about my career. Can someone guide me?

About some years ago I was working with a law firm where the work culture was very hostile and aggressive. My seniors were very rude to me and often overloaded me with work. Even after submitting my work before deadlines I was often yelled at and blamed for not closing a client. This led me to a mental trauma, I started feeling like a failure and went into depression. When I discussed this with one of my friends, he guided me to switch the company. I soon switched my firm and only then I realized it was not me at the fault but the environment I was working in.

Everyone talks about creating a work-life balance but it is more easy said than done. I have been in the legal industry for quite some time now and I can say with some confidence that with the work pressure and environment, everyone faces so much of stress and they have neglected their mental health for sure. When I started as a lawyer, it was a very enthusiastic experience in the beginning for me but as the time passed by the competition hit me and things turned out to be the worse. Tirelessly working for 48hrs every week to solve different cases and still working it off some other competitors we sometimes called friends. I have seen relation destroyed, families disrupted, wrong decisions made when we knew what was right, sooner this all came to me like nightmares. I talked to a few friends about this and all suggested we need to talk about this. After all these years, I still feel the stress of my workplace but it has gotten better. People in the industry are willing to talk about this but mental health of legal industry is still very disturbed and this needs to be focused and talked about more.

I am a 4th semester law student. In my 1st year my education was going pretty smooth and I was very sorted but soon it was disrupted as I entered my 2nd year. I saw all other students worrying about their career and joining internships to build a better portfolio. While I was still enjoying my student life. As I saw the competition around me was taking up pace, even my friends whom I used to hangout with had joined an internship, I suddenly felt left behind. I started feeling the pressure and stress of the competition. One of my professors soon noticed this change in my behaviour and had a quick chat with me. He understood my problem and actually made me understand the starting late is not as bad as it looks.