A prominent myth that pervades start-ups, established corporations, not-for-profits, and activist circles is that if you care more, you do more. Find your passion, your true calling, and you will never work a day in your life; so the myth goes.
This is demonstrably untrue. In their survey of 1,000 professionals in the US Deloitte found that passion for their work did not make people less vulnerable to burnout.
In fact, passionate people may actually find themselves more susceptible to burnout in particular ways. Various cultural forces are very adept at co-opting the passion and drive of highly capable people and using up this energy without adequately compensating or allowing for the sort of balance and refueling that makes work worthwhile in the long run.
Capitalism is not interested in the maximizing of human potential or satisfaction; it is interested in the maximizing of profit. As a result, Capitalism commodifies passion, caring, and drive and uses them as tools to reach its own ends. The person in possession of the passion and drive often gets trampled in the process.
To address burnout in a systemic way means to de-center Capitalism, to recognize and resist the ways in which it hijacks what we care about most and diverts it solely to the creation of profit when our passion, our drive, and our creativity could be used in the service of creating more sustaining and satisfying lives.
The first step is identifying the ideas that steadily work on us and convince us to sacrifice more and more time, energy, and talent in the service of goals that are not our own. The next blog post will tackle this subject in detail.
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Kathryn Stinson
I help passionate people identify and dismantle the cultural drivers of burnout, so they can serve their big visions without burning out. Find information and strategies for dealing with burnout here, or reach out to work with me.
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Each month I take a deep dive into one aspect of resisting burnout.
Monthly Deep Dive Letters name cultural dynamics that generate burnout and open doors to imagining how we might do things differently. For examples of what I write about, take a look at the blog.
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