Tired, overworked and underpaid

Lately I cannot shake the feeling that I am hard done by. But the truth is that I make the decisions in my life. I am a big girl now. At forty, I should be more in charge of my life than I am.

As I sit in the Qantas International lounge at 0430 on a Monday morning, dousing myself in tea in an attempt to fire up my inactive brain cells I am reminded that I chose this. I applied for this job, I asked for the promotion and I choose to stay. Every day that I ignore the email alerts from Seek, every time I delete that unread email full of other opportunities I make a choice.

I choose to stay in a job that has me travel to New Zealand two weeks out of every three. I choose to work 14-20 hours a day in a position I am about $30k underpaid for. I choose to worry about all the work that remains undone after I dedicate all my waking hours to the office. I choose to put work above my health. I choose to neglect my kids, fiance, friends and extended family. Every day I make a choice to keep myself in this state of fatigue where I am inundated with work and have an overbearing sense that I am completely undervalued.

The question begs - why?