Running on Empty: Exploring Our Relationship with Burnout

In this salon, Interintellects Vidhika Bansal and Kushaan Shah ask: what does the spectrum of burnout look like? 

Most of us have experienced some form of burnout before. Hell, you might even be feeling it at this particular moment.

Whether it’s through work, daily content creation on Twitter, keeping up with dating apps, parenting through a pandemic, or generally juggling the bazillion things on our plates, feelings of exhaustion and overwhelm can creep up on us and linger.

We can get consumed by our responsibilities — mentally, physically, and emotionally. But is the traditional way we think about burnout today telling an incomplete story? What does the spectrum of burnout look like?

We invite you to share your stories about burnout, tools you’ve used to cope with it in your own life, and questions you still have about this phenomenon.

Some of the questions we might explore:

• What does it mean to burn out? Why do we tend to ignore burnout or keep it hidden?
• What role does motivation, meaning, and purpose play in burnout? How can a job with “great work-life balance” still overwhelm you?
• How does burnout differ across generations, cultures, industries, etc.? Are there certain institutional or societal expectations at play that make burnout more inevitable?
• How do hustle culture and information overload contribute?
• What role has the pandemic played when it comes to burnout?
• How can we proactively avoid burnout? How might we recognize and recover from it once it’s already hit?

Can’t wait to join you in conversation soon and hear your perspectives and insights!

Resources:

• Frameworks for Beating Burnout
• Myths About Burnout
• When Self Care Is Not The Cure
• Burnout Reconsidered
• Signs of Burnout
• Hitting a Pandemic Wall
• Some quotes on burnout

Tweets:

• On doing “too little of what sparks a light in you”
• Is burnout about the quantity or quality of what’s on your plate?
• Do you need “work-life balance” if you love what you do?
• The costs of “making it to the top”
• What role do appreciation and remote work play?
• Some words of wisdom on combating burnout
• Is burnout the wrong term? Could it be trauma?

Time zones:

Sunday 16th May

• 10am in Los Angeles / San Francisco
• 1pm in New York
• 6pm in London
• 7pm in Berlin / Paris
• 10:30pm in Mumbai

———

Why not add the ii Calendar to your calendar?

***

📋 Code of Conduct 

📚 Become a member, get a free ticket every month, access our forums, members-only events, and more!