Trapped in the Loop: The Freelancer Who Kept Reliving the Same Gig

At first, I thought it was just fatigue. After all, I’d pulled four all-nighters in a row. The client was breathing down my neck, demanding revisions for a data entry project that never seemed to end. I blamed the déjà vu on sleep deprivation.

But on the fifth day, I woke up to the same email notification.

Subject: Final Edits (Again)

Timestamp: Tuesday, 8:02 AM

Same day. Same task. Same typo in the subject line. That was the first crack in the mirror.

The Familiar Hell

I brushed my teeth, half-listening to a podcast I’d already heard—though I couldn't remember when. Breakfast tasted stale. My wife, Naima, said goodbye in the exact same words, same tone, same smile. Every. Single. Time.

At my desk, I opened the file named “Final_V3_FINAL_v6.xlsx”. That cursed file never changed, yet always needed changing. The client's feedback remained identical, as if copy-pasted from some internal loop.

Still, I worked. Still, I submitted.

And still, I awoke the next day to the same 8:02 AM ping.

The Realization

On what felt like the twentieth Tuesday, I tried changing things. I didn't open the laptop. I walked outside, something I hadn’t done in weeks. The street was silent. People moved like NPCs in a badly rendered video game.

I tried to scream. Nothing came out.

Desperate, I smashed the laptop. Burned the USB drive. Tossed my phone into the canal.

But the next day? I woke up. 8:02 AM. Email ping.

The file was back.

A Mind at War

I began questioning everything—my memory, my sanity, even the nature of time. Was I in a coma? A dream? A simulation?

Or worse—was this what burnout actually looked like? An eternal cycle where your life becomes one repeating project, one eternal hustle, with no growth, no end?

I scrawled notes across the wall:

“Break the cycle.”

“Change the routine.”

“Sleep at 6 AM, not 3.”

“Call Naima and confess everything.”

But no matter what I did… the world reset. Always at 8:02 AM.

The Rebellion

I stopped working. Ignored the email. Slept through the ping. Ate ice cream for breakfast. Watched the sun rise on the roof.

And for the first time, the clock struck 8:03.

My heart raced. I screamed in joy. I was out—I was free.

Or so I thought.

The Loop Within

The next morning came. No email. No Naima. Just silence.

And then… a new message, handwritten on the mirror:

"You were never trapped in the gig. You were trapped in yourself."

I fell to my knees, sobbing.

What if the gig wasn’t the loop? What if the loop was my fear of moving on—of letting go of structure, of comfort, of predictability?

What if I created the loop myself?

Exit Strategy

I did one last thing. I opened a blank document. Wrote a resignation letter. Not to the client—but to myself.

"Dear Umar,

It’s okay to stop. You don’t need to be productive to be worthy.

Sincerely,

Your real self."

Then I hit save.

And the clock struck 8:04.

Epilogue

I don’t know if I’m still looping. Maybe I am. But it doesn’t feel like a trap anymore. It feels like... a second chance. A way out, not by breaking time—but by rewriting my priorities.

The gig wasn’t killing me. I was.