Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

by Anne Helen Petersen

“Always moving, always improving, always learning something. In a way, it was like the darkness in the world can’t win so long as you don’t stop running.”

a major contributing factor to millennial burnout: If working hard to achieve those jobs can’t offer security, what can?

Most burnt-out millennials I know have arrived at that point of calling those expectations into question, but it didn’t happen right away. Instead, it’s taken decades: Even after watching our parents get shut out, fall from, or simply struggle anxiously to maintain the American Dream, we didn’t reject it. We tried to work harder, and better, more efficiently, with more credentials, to achieve it. And everyone, including our parents, seemed to agree on the first and most necessary stop on that journey: college, the best one possible, no matter the cost.

Your high school and college resume, no matter how robust, can still be a nearly valueless currency.

“Exposure does not pay bills,”

Which is why it’s so difficult for millennials to fathom the most enduring criticism of our generation: that we’re spoiled, or lazy, or entitled.

we believed that if opportunities didn’t arise, it was a personal problem. We acknowledged how competitive the market was, how much lower we’d set our standards, but we were also certain that if we just worked hard enough, we’d triumph—or at least

Deep down, millennials know the primary exacerbator of burnout isn’t really email, or Instagram, or a constant stream of news alerts. It’s the continuous failure to reach the impossible expectations we’ve set for ourselves.

That ceaseless drive for productivity isn’t a natural human force—and, at least in its current form,

So many of our best intentions, our most curious and creative and compassionate selves, are right there, closer beneath the surface of our lives than we know. We simply need space, time, and rest to make them a reality.

the burnout condition is more than just addiction to work. It’s an alienation from the self, and from desire.

It’s the millennial way: If the system is rigged against you, just try harder.

We shouldn’t have to choose between excelling in work and thriving as individuals.

we do need an acknowledgment of how close we are to collapse—and how ready we are for substantive change.