emptymanuscript | (no subject)

You can't reblog on Dreamwidth, can you :/

Well, I read

gamerchick02's post about the article How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation and read the article and hit this quote:

“The exhaustion experienced in burnout combines an intense yearning for this state of completion with the tormenting sense that it cannot be attained, that there is always some demand or anxiety or distraction which can’t be silenced,” Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst specializing in burnout, writes. “You feel burnout when you’ve exhausted all your internal resources, yet cannot free yourself of the nervous compulsion to go on regardless.”

I'm not a millenial. I was born in 1978. And I've got it good. Really, I do. But that paragraph sounds like the summary of me. My eternal refrain in my depression is, "I just want to be done," or, "Can't I be done, yet?" I latched on to the Hobbit song of the road going ever on and on because I was DONE and felt like I couldn't quit unless I cut my hands off. Which is when my therapist really did start insisting I should go into the hospital.

I don't know how I can have burnout. I don't do enough to have burnout.Not in the way the article talks about of molding yourself to unrealistic expectations but in the literal I don't have a job and I'm not going to starve or be homeless because it doesn't matter way. But this article is resonating in a really weird way. I am recognizing myself in it. Which is really bad and confusing. I shouldn't. I have the ultimate in off the clock.

And I have no idea where to go with this. I mostly want to say holy shit. Me too. Sorry it's so bad for all the rest of you. And read the article. :/ I just want to reblog. I miss reblogging already.

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I miss reblogging too.

But yeah, this article really hits home.

I'm an "old" millennial: 37. I was born in 1981. I've got a lot of the same characteristics of Gen X before me and also a lot of the Millennial characteristics too.

My mother didn't push push push me into sports and everything. We had scouts, art classes, and some structured play, but nothing like kids these days do. But school. School was HIGHLY structured and I fit in like really well with the whole system. There was a time to come in, a time to have class, a time for recess, a time for lunch, a time for more class, and then a time to go home. University changed that. Yeah, I had classes and had to do homework, but mostly it was unstructured.

Now, I have work with meetings and then swathes of time that I spend doing things. Things that are again, unstructured and non-creative (at this point). Most of my time is figuring out what people want as far as their changes go. I don't mind it, but I wish things were a bit more structured.

It really kicks my butt when I have unstructured time sometimes. And yeah, I need guidance. I hate that I do.

And my job is such that things come in and I have to be on it seems all the damn time. I have a work phone. I *hate* it. I hate being on call. I hate that my boss goes "oh yeah, you can structure your time however you want". I hate that I can work from home if I choose.

Maybe I'd be better served in a job somewhere that I can't take the computer or phone home. Maybe I'm weird.

Nah, I think the point of the article is that you aren't weird. That we're in this mess and no one is looking at it right or not talking about it all so we just don't know we're all going through it.

It's interesting that you mentioned unstructured time because that's what my therapist keeps bringing up with me. That I am completely unstructured. If I don't want to go into work today, this week, this month, nothing will happen. I don't have to be in at 10am. Or 10pm. I don't have to go home at 5 or 2. I work completely for myself on my own schedule and if I decide to up and not work, I have an inheritance which will keep me fed and housed. Which is great! But it also means absolutely nothing except my own willpower gets my butt in that chair. Nothing but willpower gets me to check my email. At a time that I feel like it. Which again: great! But what gives me that willpower? What makes me feel like it? I just have to do it. Which comes out to me constantly thinking about it. Or being very purposeful in my I AM NOT THINKING ABOUT THIS.

You've got the obviously bad version of the same thing going. What gets your butt in the chair? Yeah, you have to please your boss but they don't care when or how, just that you do. Sometime. When they need you. Which could be at any second or not at all today or this week. So your mind is going to be doing the same thing, I have to do this, I have to be ready to do x, I now need to not think about x, but I need to have my life arranged that should x demand to be done now everything will fit together and I'll please my boss without disappointing anyone else in my life that I might have otherwise made plans with. Of course that's going to drive you crazy. Because the "you can structure your time however you want," is BS. They're not giving you structure and demanding your readiness without it. It might not be as bad as, "Be ready for anything," but it's on a similar spectrum. I feel like it is in part the lack of structure that is forcing our minds to try and create one when it actually can't be done because what we're trying to structure we are utterly incapable of controlling. :/

Wow.

+1 million.

You get it.

And honestly, if I was independently wealthy, I'd probably do a combination of things: be on the board of the Nile Foundation, write game and tech reviews (if just for my own interest), do video game streaming, read (more) books, and tend to a garden.

And thanks. I appreciate all your replies!

You're very welcome. :) Thanks for posting it. And I hope things improve.