The key to loving your job in the age of burnout
It seems to me that a lot of contemporary burnout stems from the extremely abstract nature of the modern economy.<p>During and after college, I spent 4-5 years working at a bakery. The pay was poor, the hours worse, customers irritating, and career advancement non-existent. And yet, I got to make hundreds of real, physical objects every day, entirely from scratch, and then see people enjoy them. That sort of instant feedback made all the scrubbing, mopping, and change-counting bearable, at least in an obvious cause-effect sense. This counter is covered in flour because I was baking these loaves of bread all day.<p>Compare this to the average office job. For the most part, the end product of a week's or month's work is essentially a bunch of text on a screen. Take a writer, for example. In the past, a journalist or writer would have some physical remnants and products of their work - the notes and manuscripts for their articles and then the final published piece in a newspaper or physical book. Today, they have...a collection of blog posts and internet articles. The physicality of the work has evaporated entirely.<p>I don't really know if this is a solvable problem in the near future, but I hope that the digital economy takes a turn back towards some sense of physicality.