Author: Mara Ellison
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Why a Cancelled Project Hurt More Than I Expected
There’s a difference between something ending and something being pulled away before it ever got started. The project was cancelled before it even felt real There was a moment — a small one, barely…
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Why My Body Tenses Up Before Meetings Even When Nothing’s Wrong
The tension shows up before my thoughts do. The calendar reminder and the first brace I notice it before the calendar reminder finishes loading. A tightening across my shoulders. My jaw setting itself without…
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What It Feels Like Grieving a Project That Failed
Grief doesn’t always arrive with an ending. Sometimes it shows up while everything else keeps moving. When it didn’t end, it just stopped being mentioned I didn’t expect to grieve it. Not really. Projects…
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When Performance Becomes a Place You Live Inside
A reflective mapping of how metrics infiltrate perception, habits, and presence at work — and the quiet emotional terrain that emerges Before recognition, there’s repetition There was a time when numbers at work were…
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Metrics of Worth — When Numbers Become the Room I’m Standing In
A connected reading path through the quiet psychology of dashboards, targets, ranking, and the strange emptiness that can follow “good performance.” Where this started for me wasn’t ambition — it was exposure I don’t…
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Quiet Resistance: How Small Refusals Quietly Reclaimed My Days
Nothing dramatic changed externally — but inside, something quietly steadied. What Quiet Resistance Really Looks Like This collection of essays began with a simple realization: resistance doesn’t have to be dramatic to be real.…
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Quiet Resistance: The Small Refusals That Kept Me From Disappearing
It wasn’t rebellion. It wasn’t a statement. It was a series of small refusals that kept my inner life from being fully absorbed by work. The Kind of Resistance No One Applauds I used…
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How I Learned to See My Metrics Without Seeing Myself in Them
The quiet unlearning that happens when your numbers are no longer your reflection When the tension around numbers began to soften I didn’t set out to detach myself from the metrics. There was no…
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Why I Feel Disconnected From My Job Even When I’m Performing Well
The strange quiet of doing well without feeling like you belong inside what you do The first trace of disconnection I can remember a handful of days where my numbers were solid — even…
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How Metrics Took the Meaning Out of My Work
The subtle displacement where what used to feel significant feels like noise The moment I didn’t notice until later There wasn’t a loud announcement. There wasn’t a shift in policy or an email telling…