How do I cope with losing every spring to tax busy season?

Every busy season you become a machine, heads down, running flat out, and you have started to wonder what you are trading all those springs for. That question is not weakness. It is your life quietly asking to be looked at. It deserves an honest answer, not another year of pushing it aside. The work is real and your skill is real, but a season that swallows you whole, year after year, has a cost, and only you can decide if the trade is worth it. Naming the cost out loud is the first honest step. You cannot weigh a bargain you refuse to look at. You may not be able to change the deadlines, but you have more say than the grind lets you feel. Protect one thing during the season, one walk, one meal, one evening that is yours. And in the quiet months, ask the bigger question plainly. A life is made of its springs too. Do not let them all pass unlived by default.