Burnout Culture & the Bullshit Idea of Finding Work/Life Balance

My fellow writers, have you ever had the experience of reading something you wrote previously and recognizing that it was a pattern after reading it?

My word for this year is Surrender, and it took me by surprise because I know that prior to 2022 I would’ve seen surrender as giving up.

But when it came through for me in December, it was pretty clear that surrendering was so much more powerful than that. It was a conscious choice to allow the universe to guide me to the experiences and people that are meant for me.

And perhaps even more importantly, it was surrendering to the greatness that I know is within me, just like it’s in all of us.

It also meant surrendering to my need for rest. To my need for play and fun and pleasure and rejuvenation. I’ve lived in hustle culture my entire life.

Not because I particularly enjoy the hustle, but partly because I have so many diverse interests, and mostly — because I lived in survival mode for so long. I don’t know what it’s like to NOT hustle.

I don’t know what it’s like to live with ease and enjoy my days.

And also, I have huge, ambitious goals for the legacy I want to leave on this planet. I want to be part of the solution to eradicating hunger and homelessness. And my friends? A lot of them have huge goals for the impact they want to have & the changes they want to see too.

So even though right now I have a full-time job where I work more hours than the 40 I get paid for, I still feel the hustle as part of my work style. As a necessity, on the path to changing the world.

But I don’t want my lifestyle to represent hustle culture. To represent burnout culture. I don’t want to live with constant exhaustion on top of dealing with my PTSD, depression, anxiety and the chronic pain that I hope someday to be free from.

Living on the constant rollercoaster of pushing myself too hard in order to try and achieve my goals in addition to performing my best at my day job means I regularly hit burnout. I regularly overdo it. And although I would’ve said that’s just who I am in the past, it’s not who I want to be.

Last year I feel like I fully came to terms with how much it was a part of my identity to overperform and overwork and be hyperproductive. How much I thought my worth was reliant on that version of me and how I thought my value was solely wrapped up in what I could do for other people.

It’s no wonder it was so hard for me to accept help up until last year. It’s still hard at times, but I’m getting better at it.

I posted a TikTok video back in January after having been sick for a few weeks, not knowing that I had a few more weeks ahead of me of still feeling ill. It’s one of the reasons I feel so frustrated and discouraged about being sick right now. I was just sick for six weeks a few weeks ago!

When do I get a break?! When do I just get to live?!

Someone commented on my video wishing me well and I told them I was “working on it.” Like it was a problem to be solved. I told them that resting was not my strong suit.

And when I reread that comment yesterday, laying in bed and for the most part not able to be on my devices at all because my eyes and ears were hurting, it hit me. It may not have been my strong suit in the past, but I want it to be.

I want to get SO good at resting, so proficient at it. I want to be the person that other people look to as an example of taking care of yourself first and foremost — no matter what.

I don’t want to be an example of burnout — of hustle culture.

And then I thought about how, when I was sick for six weeks, I had decided that surrender didn’t just mean surrendering to my own greatness.

It also meant surrendering to that great, powerful, sometimes-still-too-quiet voice inside of me that always speaks up when it’s time to slow down. That always tells me it’s time to take a break. It’s time to rest.

I want to surrender to my humanity.

The more time I spend alone in my little bubble of an apartment, without an ex who was almost always angry, with my animals, who are almost always happy, and who do rest and play amazingly, I’m leaning into a different way of life.

And I think back to the journal entry that I stumbled upon from 2019. An entry that was far from the first or last time I wrote this:

I need to get better at balancing my work and play.

I don’t even like the work balance anymore, because I think that balance is unachievable. I think we look for it just like we aim for the perfect body — it’s something that we know will always be out of reach and it sets us up for failure.

When I was 19, I got my first tattoo, a very stereotypical set of Chinese symbols on my left shoulder blade.

And even though they were stereotypical, I knew I didn’t want to get something like “hope” or “love” like most people. So instead I got knowledge & harmony.

Knowledge was the easy one — I’ve always been a craver of learning & growth. I’ve always asked a lot of questions and been more curious than most people appreciate. Now as a clarity coach I get paid to ask people questions and help them figure out their shit.

But harmony?

Even though it resonated when I got it, I didn’t really know why I picked it.

And now as an adult in my 30s, it makes sense. I don’t want balance. I don’t want to go for that unattainable goal. Harmony makes a lot more sense.

There will never be a period of my life where work and play will be completely balanced. That’s not the nature of life.

There will be periods when my family takes up a lot more of my time, when pleasure takes up a lot more of my time, when fun and adventure are the priority. When rest supersedes everything else. And there will also be periods when I work more than I play.

So I don’t want to set the standard for myself of trying to find balance anymore. I want to live in harmony.

I want to live so that rest and play and pleasure are in my life every day, and maybe work is too. But no matter what, I’m living in harmony, not in survival mode. Not aiming to balance the un-balancable. (Your welcome for that non-word lol).

I’m surrendering to the human experience, as I want it to be, as it should be. (And “should” is a loaded word in itself.)

I could say but I don’t know what that looks like, and maybe you feel that way too. But the truth is, I do.

It might not be natural, or intuitive, or easy for me to lean into a life of play and pleasure and relaxation. But I do know what it looks like.

I know that it looks like me meditating every day. It looks like early bedtimes and hot baths more often than showers. It looks like listening to my body when it’s hungry and eating whatever I’m hungry for, regardless of diet culture.

It looks like living without a scale to weigh myself because that number is not important to me.

It looks like protecting my boundaries at work so that when I’m in a position to pay myself, and work only for myself, my needs and my boundaries are already clear because I had to establish them with other people first.

It looks like unplugging from social media more often than not, and leaning into the desire to play Sims on my computer, or dance on my Wii, or read novels, or paint and collage for myself - not for anyone else (or for a profit).

It looks like buying a triplex and renovating it so I can have rental & Airbnb income. It looks like buying a school bus and renovating it so I can travel with my future foster kids. It looks like going back to school so I can officially study world hunger and work on my solution.

It looks like going into business with people I truly love and adore, and making work a form of pleasure.

It looks like taking myself on dates, going to the movie theater for the first time in years, and getting massages, and enjoying my oat milk lattes from Starbucks even if it makes me bougie.

I know what surrendering looks like. What I don’t know yet is how to be comfortable leaning into it. Yet.

But I will learn how to do it, and I will lean into it more and more each day until RESTING is my strong suit.