I woke up feeling a bit weird. Headache, pressure in my chest, wobbly. I looked at my partner.
“Babe, can you get me a rapid test? I’m not feeling well… I’m pretty sure I’m ok, but just in case…”
See, we were supposed to go to his mom’s place for his brother’s birthday, and I had this feeling that if I didn’t test myself, I would regret it and maybe contribute to his folks getting very sick. And I didn’t want to become this kind of daughter-in-law. So I scrubbed my throat, put the elongated q-tip up my nose, and waited.
It took 2 minutes.
And here I was, becoming the latest victim of the Sixth Wave™, an unofficial name to a very real problem (wait, I just received the notification that we are actually in a Sixth Wave! Happy Sixth Wave everyone!) A problem our government isn’t doing anything about.
But hey. This is not a piece on the government and how not doing a thing for election purposes is basically the downfall of humanity. This is for another time, when the government will act in a way that’s overly stupid, making me wonder why, oh why, people vote for them.
No. This piece is about productivity. Creativity. Working. Cause yes, I caught COVID and… well I continued working. I took a “day off” — I was still connected and still looked at my messages and emails. I was tired as fuck, coughing my lungs out and having the headache of a lifetime, and yet… I still worked. My Elder Millennial and Gen X colleagues made it very clear that I had to rest. My boss told me that if I was online, she wouldn’t be happy at all. I listened…partially. I put myself on the infamous “Appear Offline,” checking every notification, making sure I won’t miss a thing. Because this week was supposed to be the perfect week. See, I was supposed to go to Concordia and speak to my friend’ students. I was about to deliver and produce my first piece of video content at work. I had a cool interview with an artist on Wednesday. I had drinks with one of my best friends. I finally figured out my novel. I…
I know far too well where I got this bug. The “workaholic” bug. The “I can work crazy hours!” bug. The “Burnout? I don’t know her!” bug. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… and I’m my father’s daughter. My dad is a passionate worker. He works like crazy because he loves what he does. I used to not understand until I found my own purpose, my own love story with what I do. I love writing. It’s my hobby, it’s also my job. It’s everything I wished I would ever do. I wrote all day today (with COVID,) and I’m writing now an essay about work, productivity, and burnout. I LIVE to write. I DO NOT write to live.
I think I sold the punch here. Cause I’m tired. I’m extremely tired and I’ve been having a hard time recuperating. I lie down, my mind is spinning, and I cry at the end of the day.
“I shouldn’t have worked.” I say to my partner.
He looks at me and rolls his eyes.
“You are BURNED OUT, Yara. You need to acknowledge it.”
And he’s right. I’ve been burnt out for as long as I know. And COVID is basically the last straw on my body. Putting me to rest, forcing me to take a time out.
Rest, as Leif Vollebekk sings to me as a lullaby when I try to sleep.
(It’s a great song. Y’all should listen to it.)
Millennials are the burntout generation. I’m not pulling this out of my head. It’s Anne Helen Petersen, one of my favorite culture writers, who said it in a very pertinent article called How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation and in her book, Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, that followed the release of this piece.
(Before I continue, here’s a general PSA: Don’t read the reviews on her book. It’s great. I really understood myself when reading it. People saying that it’s whiny and that they don’t recognize their kids in this don’t know their kids. They just love to hate on younger generations.)
In her article, Anne Helen Petersen talks about how burnout is basically the cloth Millennials are made of. We can’t achieve the tiniest mundane little task, we can’t seem to finish our list of errands. It’s in our DNA. She explains that she didn’t recognize her burnout until she really thought about it. For her, burnout was something that only happened in stressful jobs and environments. What was her reason to be burnout? She finally recognized it when she noticed that the easiest task wasn’t something she was capable of doing. And she recognized the patterns in other Millennials like her.
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’s where it hits. It’s the fact that I might have been burned out… forever? I don’t know when it started and I don’t know if there’s an end to it. I know that at some point, I only had a job and no projects on the side, but I was dating, having at least a date every week, and going out with friends all the time. And both of these things, let’s be honest, are part-time jobs. But I’ve also been conditioned in thinking that I should have a job, a side gig, a hobby, a project, a social life, a personal life, time for my family, time for other pursuits, and time for myself.
And as much as my violent-abusive ex says that it is possible, let me tell you… it is totally not. You end up squeezing yourself like a lemon, trying to get that last drop even if the last drop is already in the glass. Just one more…
Recently, I complained to my friend Adriana that I wasn’t able to write. She replied that she knew. That even her — and God only knows how much I admire her and love her — had trouble writing since the beginning of the pandemic. The pandemic robbed us of our capacity to have experiences, observe people, and discreetly note their characteristics. It robbed us of connecting to one another, imagining a life, and projecting stories. The things that made us human have not existed for 2 years. And as much as I want to say that it is coming back to normal, it isn’t. There’s something missing, spontaneity has left the room. And this lack of normalcy, well… it drives us to burnout. Adriana told me to not force myself to write, to not even expect to write during my writing retreat, but to organize my thoughts. To find what was important for me to say. To stop expecting so much. To take it as it is.
I’ve been tired for years now. I’ve been waking up at night, I’ve been going through anxiety attacks, heart issues, acrimonious breakups, and deliberate comments to attack my work. And I’m not the only one. We, millennials, don’t stand a chance. We never have, and the pandemic just made it worse.
Petersen opens her book with an author’s note about the COVID-19 pandemic. She states that it has become clear that the pandemic has become the “great clarifier”2, the moment where we, as a generation, realized that everything was broken and that we are broken with it. But by knowing this, there is the possibility to change. We, as a generation, haven’t failed. It is the system that failed us, and we can change things around.
Today, I’m on day 7 of COVID. My partner caught it, but he’s feeling ok. Just tired. I’m feeling better, but just tired. And I can finally acknowledge that there’s so much more to my fatigue than only COVID. It’s an accumulation of things that have been lingering. It’s the fact that I have debt even if I’m doing pretty well for myself. It’s the fact that I wish I could own a home, but I end up frustrated by the overbidding and highly inflated housing market. It’s the fact that people think they can do my journalism job easily when I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am. It’s the fact that I’m 31 and my biological clock is ticking. It’s the fact that I feel that I have to choose between being a mother or having a career as a writer. It’s everything. And yet, I’m still hanging on. I can hope for better days to come.
But for the moment being, I’ll listen to Leif Vollebekk singing me to sleep. And I’ll Rest.
Hi! Thank you for reading this until the end. I truly appreciate it. I’ve been exploring subjects differently now and I think I like this format. If you like it too or if you have suggestions, please feel free to tell me. I’m always open to hearing you out.
As usual, if you like what you read, please share this. :) I’d love to know what you think and what your friends think about it.
And don’t forget, burnout is real. It’s a medical condition. If you really feel like you aren’t capable of doing anything and the tiniest thing is exhausting to you, please see a doctor. There’s nothing shameful in feeling exhausted. The world is exhausting right now.
See you next Sunday!
-xo
Yara
Petersen, Anne Helen. How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation, BuzzFeed News. [January 5, 2019]
Petersen, Anne Helen. Can’t Even. How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 276 pages.