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It’s 4pm on a Wednesday and I’m having a moment.
I’m staring at my computer screen, as I have been for a few hours now, and feel like there is something physically inhibiting me to think about the things I have to do, let alone actually begin doing them. So, I’m writing this instead.
I am exhausted, mentally more than physically and not from lack of sleep. My busy brain keeps twitching and turning and refuses to remain in the present moment, constantly thinking of what I have to do next, where I’d rather be, all of the things I’d rather be focusing on.
This cloud in my mind won’t be dismissed easily, so I turn to my phone for a mental break. I see people who are living their best lives on Instagram, travelling and working away. Achieving a ‘perfect balance´ between #workhardplayhard. All I am is #jealous. Then comes the anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. A moment where I start thinking about “do I want to do what I am currently doing for the rest of my life”, “what do I even want to do” and “what would be enough”. Then logic seeps in saying “Laura - you’re 24”. Then why do I feel so anxious about this?
This is a real thing though. It’s sometimes called Generation Panic or Millennial Anxiety and can sometimes lead to clinical diagnoses. It has been suggested that a desire for excellence often leads millennials to the darker side of “hustle culture” and negative emotions due to unmet expectations.
Social media has an enormous impact on this of course, where you see influencers or certain people up and at ‘em with their own “hustles” working remotely in fabulous places, doing work that (it seems, at least) they are obsessed with and love. Maria Tillman, a licensed therapist, says that because many young people spend a greater part of their time on the internet and are exposed to a lot of information and opinions that shape their thinking – projections of specific moments and not entire realities.
Although we are aware that these lives aren’t necessarily “real”, we still tend to judge ourselves against them. Anne Helen Peterson (BuzzFeed News) notes that “millennials are far less jealous of objects or belongings on social media than the holistic experiences represented there. That enviable mix of leisure and travel, the accumulation of pets and children, the landscapes inhabited, and the food consumed seems not just desirable, but balanced, satisfied, and unafflicted by burnout.”
I myself have “rise and grind” associated anxiety and a detrimental inability to switch off and relax. I have had this conversation with many friends of mine, and for us, it manifests in a feeling of guilt. Guilt can be a motivating emotion; guilt helps you get up in the morning. It can be that voice in your head that says “You need to get up now because you have to do XYZ”. More importantly, guilt is that feeling that deters you from doing things that ultimately go against your own moral standards, like feeling guilty for lying to people and hating the feeling – deterring you from repeating this uncomfortable offence.
However – when this guilt is being felt often, and for things that you know you should not feel guilty about like taking a day off and trying to recoup mentally and physically, it certainly is not helpful. It feels like a jitter you can’t shake or a restlessness that can only be solved by doing something ‘productive’. And I know I’m not alone in this.
A day “off” feels like a day wasted. I make plans early to ensure I’m making the most of my weekends and evenings after work. To some this seems structured and organised, but it often leaves me exhausted. So why is this? Much of the burnout we feel is directly related to building ourselves as walking résumés (Anne Helen Peterson). We feel a constant need to be seen to be active and doing things.
This in turn, leads to the burnout. Then we sit there asking ourselves, why am I burned out? It’s Monday morning and I’ve just had two days off? It’s because we’ve internalized the idea that we should be working or doing all the time. Chatting to friends on a Monday morning we discuss everything we did at the weekend as if we are outlining our shopping lists. “3 walks with friends, 2 coffees with people from work, flatmate drinks Friday, family BBQ Saturday, cleaned the gaff, washed the dog, posted it all on Instagram”. It would make you tired just writing it out in a text message let alone actually doing it.
I wish I had the solution to this, and I see it as being highly unlikely that I can change an entire ingrained culture, but it is definitely worth noticing. Introspecting and looking at the things that help cause this burnout is at least a start, I think. I envy those who can “switch-off” purely to relax where I find it a challenge, but I plan to practice myself. It is an attempt to think about life and detail what meaning and happiness we can take from it, by living it.
Maybe you can relate too.
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