White Nights

People often comment that a career in dentistry is awesome and I'm so lucky to have a job with such flexible hours and pays well.

That's all true - but it is also true that it's an extremely stressful job. After all, dental treatment is expensive. Which means patients expect a near if not absolutely perfect job.

As a result, every few weeks I get a white night due to dentistry related worries. To be fair, perhaps to a certain extent it's my personality that makes it harder.

I dislike not delivering a perfect result, even when I know it was impossible anyway.

I take it pretty hard when a patient doesn't like me. Even if it's through no fault of my own and they're just being unreasonable, I still feel bad about it.

Am I happy here?

I am not unhappy, but I wouldn't say I'm happy either. I do it because it's what I have been trained to do, and it has bought me the lifestyle that I live now. And occasionally I still get some pleasure out of it. But most of the time I'm stressed due to the amount of responsibility I have to bear.

So this is what real life as an adult is like. Sometimes I feel like I'm just struggling to keep my head above water. Cannot imagine what it's like for people who have children.