How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Peterson
I don't think I've ever related as hard to an article as I have to this one. There's parts in here that feel existentially painful to read.
It's a lengthy article, but worth the read. You're more than likely to find something in here that hits close to home.
I don't think I've ever related as hard to an article as I have to this one. There's parts in here that feel existentially painful to read.
But the more I tried to figure out my errand paralysis, the more the actual parameters of burnout began to reveal themselves. Burnout and the behaviors and weight that accompany it aren't, in fact, something we can cure by going on vacation. It's not limited to workers in acutely high-stress environments. And it's not a temporary affliction: It's the millennial condition. It's our base temperature. It's our background music. It's the way things are. It's our lives.
That realization recast my recent struggles: Why can't I get this mundane stuff done? Because I'm burned out. Why am I burned out? Because I've internalized the idea that I should be working all the time. Why have I internalized that idea? Because everything and everyone in my life has reinforced it — explicitly and implicitly — since I was young. Life has always been hard, but many millennials are unequipped to deal with the particular ways in which it's become hard for us.
I'd worked hard in college, but as an old millennial, the expectations for labor were tempered. We liked to say we worked hard, played hard — and there were clear boundaries around each of those activities. Grad school, then, is where I learned to work like a millennial, which is to say, all the time. My new watchword was "Everything that's good is bad, everything that's bad is good": Things that should've felt good (leisure, not working) felt bad because I felt guilty for not working; things that should've felt "bad" (working all the time) felt good because I was doing what I thought I should and needed to be doing in order to succeed.
It's a lengthy article, but worth the read. You're more than likely to find something in here that hits close to home.
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