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Is Emotional Burnout From Work Now Normative?
Written before about emotional exhaustion and work stress, and this will be a bit similar on emotional burnout.
Fact is: work is very stressful for a lot of people. It’s kind of mind-boggling because we have a super advanced tech stack these days, and the entire point of tech is supposed to be “making things easier.” But what often happens is that people view it as “another thing to manage,” or the tech means you can get clients in Seoul whereas previously you couldn’t — so now it’s more work, more relationships, more KPIs, etc. It all piles up.
The elephant in the room here, of course, is that work is closely tied to self-worth for many (especially males) — so even if you’re not working super hard, you’re likely to tell everyone how much you’re working. (We all know a version of this person.) The first world tends to deify the workaholic, so many of us attempt to present as such. It increases our own feelings of relevance.
That, too, can present as a form of emotional burnout — you essentially need to keep up a lie (“I’m doing 85 hours/week!”) for a decade or more. It’s taxing.
Point being: emotional burnout is very real. But just how pervasive has it become?
