> quitting is a last-ditch effort at self-preservation.

Can you imagine a red cross nurse suffering from burn out? She may work for food and her life may be hard by most standards, but what she does is in harmony with her true self, and this gives her energy and inner peace. A highly paid corporate worker, on the other hand, may do something that's against his principles, something that doesn't harmonize with his true self, and he has to forcefully take bits of energy from his soul and sell it. This is what drains him and leads to burnout.