What Does Achievement Really Mean?

I've been back to work today and it's less bad than expected.

That said, I guess I'm beginning to realize a bit better how unhealthy the job has been for my sense of pride in myself.

I still have mountains of impostor syndrome, no matter how much I labour away on behalf of my tasks and my colleagues. (Although to be fair, I'm already used to having mountains of impostor syndrome about freelance writing, and in that case I wasn't being paid for the trouble.)

My task load also increases exponentially every month, to exaggerate a little. So no matter how much I do I will always be asked for more.

Yesterday I'd sight-read most of Schumann's "Abegg" variations on the piano, for fun, and doing that gave me a far purer sense of achievement than anything else I've done for months.