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Comment by fleddr | Hacker News Reader

In the workplace, I've seen a few people crash into a burnout and it was always your list in reverse order.

It starts with work being rather meaningless or just spinning wheels. It takes an enormous amount of effort to achieve little progress and even then the outcome doesn't bring about a great satisfaction, it is rather vague.

Which is then followed by cynicism. Which self-sabotages a way out, because with cynicism you'll be sure everything feels meaningless, even if it isn't.

Next, people grind through this perpetual state of deep unhappiness for the longest time possible, because showing vulnerability is taboo, plus bills have to get paid. Until the mind snaps, and subsequently the body.

Literally a countdown of your list: 3, 2, 1. Game over.

In the case of millennials, the link to work seems weaker. They seem to have a generic existential dread to them.

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>In the case of millennials, the link to work seems weaker. They seem to have a generic existential dread to them.

That's provoked me into thinking why. Assuming it's true and not a trope, some possibilities:

- They're more plugged into social media and online communities which provide validation of some of the items we're discussing here.

- They're more skeptical and cynical broadly-speaking, maybe due to some political or some Zeitgeist unique to the moment.

Again this assumes it is true that they're really more cynical about work, and we've controlled for the weird economic circumstances of the last few years. Anyone without a high salary or who's tried and failed to purchase a property is probably somewhat skeeved at the moment.

I think it's Zeitgeist.

The narrative of their lifetime is 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, Trump and deep polarization, COVID, another war, cost of living crisis, and a middle class existence increasingly out of reach.

The future: climate crisis, multi-polar world (China, Russia), more job instability, AI wrecking everything.

Western civilization peaked in the 90s, it's all downhill since then. The millennial generation has only known downhill.

But the 70's and 80's were marred with inflation, booms and bust cycles, Soviet-US rivalry dominating the headlines, and proxy wars in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Inner cities were grim and it isn't obvious if Americans could be described as optimistic then.

The 50's and 60's may have been a uniquely optimistic time for Americans (less so for Europeans after WWII). The country came out ahead, growing, rich and dominant. The 1960's was a unique decade seemingly of optimism and change. However there were certainly massive challenges, you can find enough evidence of terrible injustices being committed against minority groups standing up for themselves.

We work backwards and find tragedies in all of them.

Fast-forward again, we have incredible technology - we have maps, video conferencing and infinity encyclopedias in our pockets; people are getting bodypart transplants and plasma injections; we have consumer devices that monitor our health. None of us have fear of draft. There's no rational fear of rockets raining on us. We're incredibly lucky.

I can see the downhill feeling though. There's a deep pessimism.

There's reason to be pessimistic, mind you - but the pessimism is very monetizable, making it difficult to tell how much of it is being fed to us for profit.

Soul crushed by work millennial here, and this is exactly how it went for me, twice already.

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