Mr Mujtaba's Blog
February 6, 2026
The "Hustle" is Killing Us: Why Your Burnout Is Not A Personal Failure
If you've ever quit your high-paying job for a passion project, you know the script: high energy, endless hours, and the dream of changing the world.
But what happens when the very thing you create to solve anxiety becomes the primary source of your own breakdown?
This is the question at the heart of our new novella, Startup Illness: A Story of Burnout, Ambition, and Peace.
💔 From Cure to Poison: The Story of Ethan Vance
Meet Ethan Vance. He's the protagonist of Startup Illness and the founder of Oculus, an app designed to solve the single greatest anxiety of modern life: the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Ethan's journey isn't just fiction; it’s a mirror for anyone caught in the toxic entrepreneurial spiral.
Ethan thought he was building a cure for the world's attention deficit. Instead, the relentless demands of his angel investor, Marcus Holloway, and the pressure to scale at all costs turn his app into a poison. He trades his integrity for valuation and his sanity for the hustle.
The Real Cost of the "Startup Illness"
The book pulls no punches, exploring the brutal truth that the cost of this illness isn't just a failed company; it's the total breakdown of the founder's life:
The Marriage: His partner, Eliza, watches the dream—and the man she loves—disappear behind energy drinks and endless broken promises.
The Health: Ethan is eventually stripped of all control, facing total personal breakdown in an empty hospital room, a victim of his own ambition.
The Ideals: He's forced to confront whether his original mission was worth sacrificing every ethical boundary he once held dear.
❓ What Is Your Price for Peace?
This novella isn't just about the darkness of burnout; it’s about the hard-won discovery of what true success really looks like.
When everything is gone, Ethan is faced with a desperate choice: surrender to a humiliating corporate exit to save his money, or embrace chaos to find a sustainable, internal cure.
If you have ever felt:
The pressure to compromise your values for a financial win.
The isolation of a project that consumes your every waking hour.
That you're sacrificing your life, health, or marriage for a metric.
Then this is the book you need to read right now.
Startup Illness is a sharp, timely reckoning for anyone in the hustle culture. It's the story that reminds you that success isn't measured by a bank account, but by the quiet, daily act of choosing peace over panic.
Don't wait until you're in the hospital room to start the reckoning.
But what happens when the very thing you create to solve anxiety becomes the primary source of your own breakdown?
This is the question at the heart of our new novella, Startup Illness: A Story of Burnout, Ambition, and Peace.
💔 From Cure to Poison: The Story of Ethan Vance
Meet Ethan Vance. He's the protagonist of Startup Illness and the founder of Oculus, an app designed to solve the single greatest anxiety of modern life: the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Ethan's journey isn't just fiction; it’s a mirror for anyone caught in the toxic entrepreneurial spiral.
Ethan thought he was building a cure for the world's attention deficit. Instead, the relentless demands of his angel investor, Marcus Holloway, and the pressure to scale at all costs turn his app into a poison. He trades his integrity for valuation and his sanity for the hustle.
The Real Cost of the "Startup Illness"
The book pulls no punches, exploring the brutal truth that the cost of this illness isn't just a failed company; it's the total breakdown of the founder's life:
The Marriage: His partner, Eliza, watches the dream—and the man she loves—disappear behind energy drinks and endless broken promises.
The Health: Ethan is eventually stripped of all control, facing total personal breakdown in an empty hospital room, a victim of his own ambition.
The Ideals: He's forced to confront whether his original mission was worth sacrificing every ethical boundary he once held dear.
❓ What Is Your Price for Peace?
This novella isn't just about the darkness of burnout; it’s about the hard-won discovery of what true success really looks like.
When everything is gone, Ethan is faced with a desperate choice: surrender to a humiliating corporate exit to save his money, or embrace chaos to find a sustainable, internal cure.
If you have ever felt:
The pressure to compromise your values for a financial win.
The isolation of a project that consumes your every waking hour.
That you're sacrificing your life, health, or marriage for a metric.
Then this is the book you need to read right now.
Startup Illness is a sharp, timely reckoning for anyone in the hustle culture. It's the story that reminds you that success isn't measured by a bank account, but by the quiet, daily act of choosing peace over panic.
Don't wait until you're in the hospital room to start the reckoning.
