“Você já questionou a natureza da sua realidade?” – Bernard Lowe, Westworld, temporada 1, episódio 1
Right in the first episode of WestworldBernard asks Dolores a question that spans the entire series: Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
For those who have never seen Westworld It is a science fiction series set in a futuristic park inhabited by androids nearly indistinguishable from humans. Called hosts, they exist to interpret pre-programmed stories. Every day, they wake up, fulfill their roles, respond to their environment, and repeat the same script without realizing they are trapped in a cycle.
When something goes awry, your memories are wiped clean and everything starts over. Gradually, however, some memories remain. Small annoyances begin to reveal that what seemed natural may have been nothing more than a repetition so ancient it is no longer perceived.
With all due proportions, this can also happen in the routine of those who work with technology.
You close the laptop, but you keep mentally reviewing what's still pending. You remember the incident that hasn't been resolved yet, pull request that no one reviewed, or that message that arrived right when you thought you could wrap up work earlier that day.
The body left the office. The mind did not.
Dinner is there, the conversation is there, and life is there. Yet, a part of the mind continues to anticipate problems, calculate risks, and wait for the next notification.
In tech, this script can install itself almost imperceptibly. The day begins with a glance at messages before even stepping out the door. Then comes the first meeting while the soul is still hunting for coffee. Throughout the hours, new demands appear, priorities shift, returns never come, and problems need to be solved. At some point, a bug emerges that, of course, only appeared in production.
In the meantime, the backlog stays right where it is, firmly entrenched, like a relative who shows up for lunch and lingers for the afternoon coffee.
At first, you call this rhythm a phase. Then, you call it responsibility. Over time, you stop calling it anything at all. You just keep going.
In the eighth episode of the first season of Westworld, Dr. Ford observes that we live in loops just as narrow and closed as the hostsPerhaps that is exactly what makes certain work rhythms so difficult to perceive.
Repetition becomes normalized: to wake up, to respond, to solve, to deliver, to remain available, and to start again the next dayas if that were the only way to live a career.
My relationship with this topic did not begin solely in Psychology. I have worked with technology since 1995 and have lived this universe as a programmer, teacher, manager, and researcher. Therefore, I know not only the tools and deliverables but also the feeling that there is always something waiting to be resolved.
I’m also familiar with that thought that shows up after hours: “I’ll just check one thing.” By the time you realize it, that one thing has already branched off into seven more.
In recent years, I have begun to look more directly at the relationship between work and mental health. This intersection of technology and psychology has made me realize that the problem is not always solely about the number of hours worked. Often, it begins when work continues to operate within the person.
Even far from the keyboard, the mind continues reviewing conversations, anticipating failures, and imagining possible consequences. The workday ends on the calendar, but not in the body. You are at home, but a part of you remains on duty.
Not always does this appear as a major crisis. It can emerge as irritability, trouble sleeping, guilt when resting, fear of disappointing others, or the feeling that you are never doing enough. At other times, it appears as an unexplainable void: life continues to function, but something inside seems disconnected.
Working with technology demands responsibility. Systems go down, clients press for answers, deadlines loom, and production environments are terrifying. Friday after 4:00 PM should come with a warning label, even when it doesn't.
Nevertheless, working with complex problems should not mean living as if everything were an emergency. There is an important difference between being responsible and being permanently available. There is also a distance between enjoying what you do and allowing your work to become the primary measure of personal worth.
For some people, resting doesn't just mean stopping an activity. It means risking not feeling useful, competent, or necessary. When recognition is built around the ability to solve problems, a pause can seem less like rest and more like a threat.
This is the point where identity begins to become intertwined with what you deliver.
The person becomes the one who solves, answers, knows, endures, and cannot fail. Gradually, asking for help seems like weakness, setting boundaries seems like a lack of commitment, and admitting fatigue seems incompatible with the image of a competent professional.
She continues to deliver, attend meetings, and keep everything running smoothly. From the outside, nothing seems out of place. Inside, however, she no longer knows how long she can sustain that pace.
In WestworldThe cycle begins to break when the characters recognize their own repetition. In professional life, perhaps the first step is also recognizing the script that has taken hold: work, solve, deliver, remain available, and start again the next day, as if this were the only way possible to live a career.
You are not just the code you write, the sprint you deliver, or the position you hold. Your professional experience has value, but it should not occupy all of life's spaces. Before the stackbeyond seniority, certifications, and goals, there is a person who feels, gets tired, needs connections, and also needs a life outside operational mode.
It may seem obvious, but many people only realize how far they've drifted from themselves when they can no longer rest without feeling guilty. Any silence starts to seem unproductive. Going without notifications provokes a kind of mental itch. The body is at home, but the mind remains at work.
Getting out of this loop doesn't mean abandoning your career or buying one Kombi and selling cheese in the Serra da Mantiqueira, although, depending on the day, the idea might seem quite reasonable.
It also does not mean becoming less ambitious, responsible, or committed. It may mean understanding why managing everything has become so necessary. It may involve recognizing how long rest has stopped being rest, how many needs have been put off because there was always something more urgent, and how much of your personal worth has become tied to deliverables.
At work, we learn to ask what still needs to be done, what the next deadline is, and what needs to be fixed. It may be important to add another question: what in me was waiting while I tried to handle everything?
There is no ready-made answer. For some people, it will be necessary to rebuild boundaries between work and personal life. For others, it will be important to understand why making mistakes, asking for help, or saying "no" produces so much guilt. It may also be necessary to look at the fear of losing performance, disappointing someone, or no longer being recognized.
In psychotherapy, it is possible to observe this relationship with work without turning rest into guilt or boundaries into failure. Not to abandon your career, but to understand how competence stopped being merely a professional quality and became a permanent obligation.
In clinical practice, these issues often emerge before the person even realizes they are suffering. They continue to work, meet deadlines, respond to messages, and participate in meetings. Life appears to be functioning on the surface, even though the effort required to keep everything running is steadily increasing.
Recognizing this loop can be the first step toward building a more sustainable relationship with work.
Closing the laptop is simple. Sometimes, it's difficult to convince your mind that the workday is over.
And you: when you close your laptop, can you end the workday in your head, too?
Alexandre Bartoli Monteiro
Psicólogo – CRP-04 / 86889