Why do I keep fixing everyone's broken things—and resent it?
You can fix almost anything. That's true, and it has made you useful — it has also made you tired. Every broken thing in the group finds its way to you, not because you asked for it, but because you never said no. This is not a skill problem. You already know how to fix things. The problem is that you let your competence become an open invitation, and you started calling the exhaustion patience, as if wearing out quietly were a virtue. Your team cannot read a limit you never spoke. They only know what has worked before: bring it to you, and it gets solved. If you want this to change, you must change what you do — not wait for them to notice you're tired.
Your patience isn't broken — your arrangement is. You chose, long ago, to be the one who fixes things, and no one has stopped bringing them to you because you never told them to stop. Decide today what you will still carry. Say it plainly to your team. Let the rest break without you.
What changes unlock by starting
- Smaller problems get solved without routing through you.
- You stop being the automatic answer to every broken thing.
- Your patience recovers because less is asked of it.
- The team becomes more capable, not just more dependent on your relief.