How Your Burnout may be Connected to our Global Crises
I believe that the epidemic levels of burnout and our converging world crises are connected.
For one, they were born out of the same extractive, capitalist culture. And two, seeing the world burn around you and feeling forced to sit at a desk or tied to a client’s to-do list and ignore it day after day can crush even the strongest of spirits.
That’s why I believe capitalist crises call for capitalist-conscious approaches for both beating burnout and finding our career path.
When we can name the exploitative waters we’re surrounded with, it’s easier to make sense of why we do what we do and then map our way in a different direction. Without naming what’s pushing us, it can be like navigating in the dark.
First, let’s get the view of the direction most of us have been taught to follow. I call it the Extractive Route.
The Extractive Route is a journey that positions us as capital in our capitalist economy. In other words: we are an asset in the primary goal of increasing GDP. It angles our lives toward our current capitalist economy’s most important goal: to increase economic productivity every year.
It is not a journey that was born to help us be healthy, happy, or even prosperous, though it promises those things as reward. Its sole purpose is to extract as much as it can from us, and then–here’s the key–even more next year.
Is it a wonder it feels like that every year we say next year will be less busy at work, and then…it’s not?
It’s the steps we often feel we “should” take in our lives to be a better person, better worker, or achieve happiness, but at its core purpose, it’s just a set of practices to maximize our production.
In our lives, the Extractive Route often shows up as “shoulds” and laced into expectations on how to be a “good” mother, partner, friend, daughter, and careerist.
You’ll notice it showing up when you’re feeling pressured to say yes when you want to say no, or feel guilty for taking a break, or feel pulled to a career that wouldn’t make as much as you’re making now, and feel “stupid” for even considering it.
It’s also the reason why just increasing self-care when you’re burnt out might not cut it. On the Extractive Route, self-care is a way of keeping your stamina up for a journey that your core self, your true self, your spirit, whatever you want to call YOU, never chose.
It’s also the reason why we might be really confused when a business we built or career we dreamed of for so long isn’t cutting it for us anymore–even if it’s meeting all of the Extractive Route’s criteria for a good one: it’s humming, it’s producing, it’s established and secure and growing.
We can have the Extractive Route so ingrained that it’s hard to understand when our internal compass no longer agrees with it. Why wouldn’t our internal compass point to the most financially secure, best-on-paper route?
It can be absolutely terrifying when we realize the Extractive Route isn’t headed where we want (or can stand) to go. Because if it’s not that direction…which one is it instead?
I believe our internal compass is tuned to a different destination than the Extractive Route takes us. This is the route of our own self-growth, our own humanity, of becoming the women we were meant to be. It’s a route that strengthens us and everyone around us with every step, rather than depletes and requires replenishing.
I call this route the Regenerative Route.
Through reflecting on my own journey extricating myself from the Extractive Route (an ongoing battle), I put together a framework that helps me conceptualize a route out of auto-pilot and into our own regenerative direction.
I’d like to write the next piece on the Regenerative Route, if that interests you. If you’d be willing to comment below if that would interest you, that would be helpful for me.
–Jeanne
