“You seem to have done a good job avoiding burnout. Against all odds, you’re maintaining a healthy work-life balance and perspective on the world. But you’re still at risk of burning out if you’re not careful. Maintain some boundaries and don’t bite off more than you can chew and maybe you’ll be okay.”
Yes, I took a Buzzfeed quiz to assess my stress level. And yes, that is what the Buzzfeed quiz gods had to say about me.
Out of 55 “burnout-related” questions, I checked off 36 of the burnout symptoms.
Have you admitted to being bad at adulting? Have you avoided talking on the phone at all costs? Have you pushed a task on your to-do list more than a week? More than three weeks? Have you worked more than 40 hours a week? These are all, supposedly, symptoms of — the now widely known — millennial burnout.
Hailey Stewart | Argonaut
Anne Helen Petersen, a culture writer and analyst for Buzzfeed, often referred to millennial burnout before it was “millennial burnout” as “errand paralysis.” In her piece, Petersen goes onto say she originally thought of burnout as something which only affected high-powered workers — the lawyers, surgeons and politicians of the world. Instead, she found burnout as a condition rendered into the lives of a very controversial generation — the millennial generation.
“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,” Petersen writes.
You might think these symptoms all sound like general traits of being human rather than a millennial. And, for the most part, you’re right.
However, the term “burnout,” for lack of better phrasing and a thorough definition for millennial, has been bestowed on this generation for the past few years. It just took a journalist with enough time and know-how to get to the bottom of the latest trendy phrase.
Millennial burnout is the constant feeling of anxiety surrounding even the most mundane acts in life, and putting those needs under the strenuous needs of work and longer term goals.
Some of Petersen’s arguments for the contributions of millennial burnout revolve around an unforgiving economy, extensive past parenting and overall inequality.
In the lengthy article, which came out just after the new year, Petersen configures the oldest of millennials to be around 38 years old and the youngest to be around 22 years old. The younger end of that spectrum is prime time for finishing college, finding a job and “settling down” — whatever that means anymore — in a world that seemingly has a general distaste for the millennial generation.
All young people will inevitably know the feeling of being burnt out, whether it fits into the millennial burnout category or just general stress. Being put into boxes — boxes like “burnt out millennial” — is what helps to instigate these stressors. We try so hard to avoid burnout by constantly trying to understand burnout tendencies and persistently chasing relaxation — a place in our lives where we might feel at peace.
But, there isn’t a place like that. And if there is, it’s most definitely fleeting. That’s life.
Petersen also acknowledges the difficulties of mitigating burnout.
“The problem with holistic, all-consuming burnout is that there’s no solution to it. You can’t optimize it to make it end faster. You can’t see it coming like a cold and start taking the burnout-prevention version of Airborne. The best way to treat it is to first acknowledge it for what it is — not a passing ailment, but a chronic disease — and to understand its roots and its parameters,” Petersen writes.
While acknowledging burnout might be what works best for most people, categorically and conclusively adding ourselves into a generalized and formulaic algorithm of the human condition won’t work.
That Buzzfeed quiz — which was not created by Petersen — won’t help mitigate burnout. Instead, it only serves to generalize and categorize us.
“You seem to have done a good job avoiding burnout.” Well for now, yes I have.
“Against all odds, you’re maintaining a healthy work-life balance and perspective on the world.” For the most part, sure.
“But you’re still at risk of burning out if you’re not careful.” Thanks, that’s quite the reminder.
So thanks to Buzzfeed, I’m more than grateful for the reminder that burnout can sneak up without remorse. But, I’ll still continue pushing the items on my to-do list.
Hailey Stewart can be reached at [email protected]