In her viral BuzzFeed essay, “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” Anne Helen Petersen thoroughly details how economic and social demands/constraints have led millennials to feel burnt out. Unlike previous generations, millennials accrued more education, more debt, and were more willing to put career progression ahead of anything else.
Millennials are seen as the generation to have killed various objects and industries. One example is the diamond industry. Many millennials are not getting married and, if they do, it is later in life and partners rarely have the financial stability to spend on a diamond engagement ring. But, many millennials feel the promises made to them growing up have been killed off, too.
Petersen notes millennial “parents – a mix of young boomers and old Gen-Xers – reared us during an age of economic and political stability. As with previous generations, there was an expectation that the next one would be better off – both in terms of health and finances. But as millennials enter into mid-adulthood, that prognosis has been proven false.” This doesn’t seem to be afflicting a generational few, but rather is seen as the condition for the whole. This feeling of instability and of always needing to catch up is the basis of the generational burn out millennials are experiencing.
Petersen argues that burnout is “not limited to workers in acutely high-stress environments. And it’s not a temporary affliction: it’s the millennial condition.” It can be seen by the high numbers of people patching together jobs in a gig economy operating on their own schedule but without health care or paid time off. It can be seen as “academics teaching four adjunct classes and surviving on food stamps while trying to publish research in one last attempt at snagging a tenure-track job.”
Older millennials had their early careers rocked by the dot com bust. It was even worse for millennials entering the job market during the 2008 recession. But, it seems many millennials still have this underlying feeling of constant anxiety that they should be doing more to optimize their time and their work in order to try and get ahead. Even self-care techniques like getting an oxygen facial or keeping a bullet journal are implemented to help you become a better person but do little to help ease your burnout.
Petersen addressed this point on Twitter when she tweeted:
THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE WILL NOT CURE YOUR BURNOUT c
THE HEADSPACE APP WILL NOT CURE YOUR BURNOUT
DRUNK ELEPHANT WILL NOT CURE YOUR BURNOUT
Petersen’s essay doesn’t actually offer any solutions to help you cure your burnout. Rather she asks the reader in earnest: “So what now? Should I meditate more, negotiate for more time off, delegate tasks within my relationship, perform acts of self-care, and institute timers on my social media? How, in other words, can I optimize myself to get those mundane tasks done and theoretically cure my burnout?”
Many other generational groups have argued that millennials aren’t the only ones that experience burnt out. Jonathan Melsic, a Gen Xer, wrote an article “Millennials Don’t Have a Monopoly on Burnout” where he contends that Petersen understates the scope of the burnout problem stating that about a quarter of all U.S. workers exhibit symptoms of burnout – it seems to be a societal problem, not a generational one.
If you are feeling burnt out, or if you want to understand the psychological landscape for millennials a bit better, Petersen’s BuzzFeed essay is a must read.
