Marco had always been the kind of person who kept going. Three years building the company from nothing — sleeping four hours a night, skipping meals, answering emails at 2am. He told himself it was temporary. It always felt temporary. Then one Tuesday morning, in a meeting he had prepared for all week, his voice simply stopped working. He stared at the whiteboard, at the faces looking back at him, and felt everything crumble at once. He had to leave the room. He sat in the stairwell for twenty minutes, unable to explain what had happened. Machines, he finally understood, were not the only things that could break down.

The three months after the burnout were the slowest of Marco's life. He learned to cook, badly at first. He started walking in the mornings — not to get anywhere, just to move. His therapist told him recovery wasn't a straight line, and she was right. There were good weeks and days that fell apart without warning. But slowly, something shifted. He went back to the company with fewer hours and clearer limits. He was surprised by how much he still loved the work — the real work, not the performance of working. Nobody bounces back to exactly who they were before. But Marco came back lighter. And that, he decided, was better.