Burnout hits Gen Z Early
The term “burnout” is something I’ve been hearing more and more recently and that would be fine except for that fact that I’m barely 21 and have already heard many of my peers my age and even younger complain about this. For Gen Z, it seems Burnout has begun much sooner than it should.
For those who don’t know, burnout is when your brain and body run out of energy after a long period of constant use. Basically, when you don’t have it in you anymore. You’re just done whether you want to be or not.
This was a term that applied to people who were in their 30s or 40s working 9-5s with no end in sight. People who had families and responsibilities coming at them from every direction, working a job they hate.
Social Media and Hustle Culture: The Reason Behind Youth Burnout
Why is this so prevalent among people who should be discovering themselves, experimenting with life, indulging in random hobbies, wasting time for fun. Well, one primary reason could be the rise of the so-called “hustle culture” in today’s world where social media and our elders all seem to push the idea that if we aren’t constantly trying to get ahead in life, we will lose out and become perpetual failures.
We are expected to be studying, freelancing, interning, all at once. Social media creates the illusion that we aren’t doing enough as we are constantly online, seeing other people do things that lead us to feel left out. LinkedIn shows us people our age starting businesses or investing or publishing and this gets into our heads making us believe that we should also be at that level. The more we see online, we begin to feel that we are already “behind” in life and that we don’t have time to catch up despite being in our early 20s with the whole world ahead of us.
The pandemic forced a lot of us to slow down and take stock of what we’re doing. But before you know it, we were back to that grind, finding some way or the other to be productive in a time when the world was barely moving.
Social media drove us to the point where we associate productivity with our self-worth and when we can’t be productive 24/7, we feel terrible about ourselves and wallow in self-pity. 
Breaking the Cycle: Finding our own Pace
It doesn’t help that in cultures like India, we don’t exactly receive support for being tired all the time at our age because it is expected of us to have unlimited energy all the time. While we should try to be energetic and productive at this age, it is not the be all and end all of our purpose. We should be allowed to figure things out in our own time without constant pressure from every direction, overwhelming us.
The world will continue as it always does, glorifying the so-called “hustle culture” which is just a hyperreal depiction of work culture. It is important that we as individuals, take time to slow down and find ourselves. At the end of the day, we can always catch up when we don’t have to force the work.
No comments yet.