Funny thing is that before reaching final stage the body sends signs. Lots of them and often. Most of knowledge workers heard this word “burnout” and it’s nothing new. Burnout does not happen over night, it takes months and even years. Close people also see the changes, but the subject goes forward ignoring everything. Why is so difficult to slow down? Is it better to spend couple years recovering instead of leaving harmful environment immediately?

There is this cultural myth of the “hero worker” who puts everything on the line to succeed. I think some people identify with this more than others and basically set themselves up with an abusive external locus of evaluation.

But preventative means limit my potential

Your potential to do what? Trade happiness for money? Because that’s how this works.

We’re totally sold on the idea that more money means a better life. More. More. Always more. Always wanting. Always lacking.

Happiness isn’t in more. It’s in everything. You just have to have the time to find it - and time is the crux.

You only live once; time is your most precious and finite commodity. Each day that passes is irrevocably gone - and as morbid as it may be, you don’t know which will be your last. I have had friends drop dead in their 20s and 30s both out of the blue, and after agonising illnesses.

If your work makes you happy, great. If your work is gently or not so gently killing you, and you are persevering for some abstract goal of “more”, you are taking a dangerous wager - your precious time against the chance of making it into the 0.0001% - the idea being that if you win, then you won’t have to work. That’s fundamentally the bet we take when we venture into a career.

There’s a shortcut. Don’t work any more than you absolutely have to to keep the lights on.

I left my business a few years ago after a decade, withered and broken, mentally and physically damaged. I do as little contracting as I can get away with to cover my living expenses, which I’ve dramatically cut by moving off grid in a cheap country. I have so much time to read, to work on projects and hobbies, to just stand and stare at the river running by.

I used to stand in the shower, weeping, and think about how I would kill myself.

Now I weep only with happiness.

Life doesn’t have to be a slog.

You've expressed a nagging feeling I've had for years beautifully here.

"Work hard and maximize your potential for... maybe someday having the luxury of time?" Nevermind that there's a cost to every hour spent working and it grows and grows with time. How many Sunday afternoons have you got left in your life? maybe 2800 if you're thirty? How many Sunday afternoons with a strong body? How many with your partner or kids? Do you want to trade those to answer some random bullshit on Slack? Is your job increasing net happiness, at least indirectly, or is it just pointless bullshit?

I think the idea is gaining traction - MrMoneyMoustache, etc. are popular but a huge amount of the things we're supposed to derive meaning from are just scaffolding around emptiness.

We live like gods compared to a few centuries ago, maybe we should take the time to enjoy it.

No prospect, no future.

You seem to be waiting for death.

No, I’m living life. If you measure your entire worth through your position in a corporate hierarchy, sure, no future.

Life isn’t about how much stuff you have, but that’s for you to find out - most only discover this just before they die, if ever.

I have little care for such things.

Human interaction is different - as is doing things with other human beings. Hobby, work, paid, volunteer - doesn't matter.

You seem to be living a recluse life. I find that concerning

As are you - so what are you doing while waiting?

projects, things. Not maximizing the time spent doing nothing or just introspecting off the grid, in a country chosen just because it was cheap.

There is a time and place for everything, but after a while it is best to interact and relate with other human beings.

The irony of you talking about relating to other human beings is staggering, given your unwarranted condescension.

I didn’t just chose here because it was cheap - I went for quality of life. Friendly locals, good food, sunshine, nature, and a generally laid back culture. I spent two years after quitting wandering the earth, weighing up options, seeing how other people live, broadening my horizons. Because I’m not spending money to make money and have no fixed calendar, I can go travel when everyone else is at school or work, meet up with friends, meet new people, experience new cultures. You can see a lot of planet for a little money, if you have time - I’ve driven the length of the Americas, from Ushuaia to Anchorage, the breadth of Eurasia, from London to Singapore, and down the west coast of Africa - and oh boy do I meander.

In these past few years I’ve written two novels, dozens of shorts, and I’m about to be (not self) published. In the last few months I’ve installed solar energy, built a dam, installed hydro energy, run plumbing, installed hot and cold running water, and inbetween I’ve found the time to go crayfish fishing and mushrooming with the locals. Sitting on the riverbank boiling up dinner you just caught and foraged with a bunch of other humans is the epitome of human interaction.

Being a cubicle jerk isn’t interaction, it’s a facsimile of interaction, divorced from human meaning, with a mechanistic ersatz set of values imposed by a group delusion.

I bought into it for too long - and only now am I beginning to realise my potential.

I don't see contact info in your profile, but I'd love a link to your novel (or email address if you care to converse). I haven't wandered, but living somewhere really cheap where my modest house is paid off in cash and monthly expenses are tiny, is life changing.

If I'd done it younger, I might've done more of what you describe, but as it is it's liberating if you've got a family too.

It's amazing the decisions you can make when "I want to take this risk or do that thing" has a worst-case outcome of "oh well, I still have a secure home for me and my family" and not "oh crap we're living out of a van". Mortgages are death to life - actual life - perhaps why that have "Mort" right there in the name.

Only in the short term. Long term your productivity would be better as you wouldn’t be suffering from health problems.

I think the point is that you don't know the limit until you reach it and when you do it may be too late. Seeing a spike in stress doesn't necessarily mean you'll burn out or that it will last forever so many try to weather it out with unfortunate consequences.

But I guess YMMV, every person is different. Some can take more punishment and get more time to decide if they want to keep it up. Some may burn out faster than they can realize.

That is fucked up. We are human beings, not some machine to be measured by how productive we are.

I think you are missing the point. You can be productive for yourselfas wellas for other people ...

A young bull and an old bull stood atop a hill grazing some sweet sweet grass. By and by they spotted a herd of cows let into the pasture in the valley below them.

The young bull pawed the ground with his hoof, snorted, and bellowed "let's run down the hill and service us one of those there cows!!!"

The old bull continued to chew his cud thoughtfully. After a pause, he said "Nope. Let's walk down the hill and service them all."

This might just mean that the work involved in "reaching your potential" literally wouldn't make you happy. I think you know that moving further would really suck in some way. So either let it go and do something else you're happy with, or work around this by figuring out what makes you happy/unhappy about this particular thing and work on refining your mindset around it.

Eventually you'll decide whether or not it's a good idea to keep going in that direction. You'll also get a clearer idea of what you actually want to do, and get rid of those weird "strong morals" that people tend to have, that really do limit their options (for example, "I'll never be able to leave this job" or when addicts feel there's no way out and they're too scared to quit, even though everything about their situation objectively sucks).

(i am only an armchair therapist, not a real one)

Burnout will limit your potential a lot more.

If you think that to invest more time in planning & rest will limit your potential, you're likely to be wrong. A proper life balance tends to support you achieving your full potential. The balancing act has a positive return on investment.

I think this touches the root cause.