Constant search for meaning is associated with higher workplace burnout, study suggests
Constant search for meaning is associated with higher workplace burnout, study suggests
Constant search for meaning is associated with higher workplace burnout, study suggests
Constant search for meaning is associated with higher workplace burnout, study suggests
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It makes sense to me from an anthropology standpoint that our egos would suffer for not having a ‘respectable’ role in society. For a lot of people their careers become their personalities, and before modern civilization there weren’t any burger flipping positions. You made your living through your value to society
“The worst thing you can teach a child is that life has a meaning” *Emil Cioran*
Giving up on searching meaning in life definitely reduced my stress level
Ouch, a little personal for my taste
My meaning is clock in, clock out. Get paid. Burn it with hookers, games, piano lessons, my cats. Vacations, and nice dinners with wife.
If you’re still searching for meaning doesn’t that mean you just haven’t found your passion yet? So is this like saying: people who haven’t found their passion burn out in the role they’re not passionate about? In other words, don’t stop looking
Decided search for meaning was more important. Much better decision
Why search for meaning when there are so many things to to. Eat good food, have a health sex life, travel, have a drink, meet friends, have good conversations, have family. Even practice religion if you feel like it. But meaning? What does that even mean?
I think we are still close enough to look back on previous generations that lived in a modern boom of technology, arts, and interconnected world culture that provided plenty of people with fulfilling lifestyles that earned from their passions. The 60s-90s had so much going for it that way. Nowadays you don’t have as many options if you want to survive comfortably. It’s just take what you can get (for more people now than before, anyway).
My personal experience was struggling with a poor sense of self worth and trying to augment it with feeling more valuable as a person by choosing a career to “serve humanity” at first in the medical sciences and then later in direct patient care as a nurse.
The good feeling wears off and it appears chasing a new self worth fix just wears you down more.
Probably people, like me, likely to get in this trap have a black and white dichotomous thinking pattern so when say corporate decisions decrease the time you felt you needed to deliver quality care you equate decrease in quality to decrease in self worth or when, like working ICU in the pandemic, most of your work was providing medically futile treatment you equate futile work with futile life meaning. And so it goes you start looking for some new fix.
stone circles ‘n’ you
Unironically, accepting and embracing the fundamental meaninglessness of life has made my life and mental health significantly better.
From an evolutionary standpoint trying to extract intrinsic meaning from a cold indifferent universe that has only entropy to offer us is a cognitive trap. Human cognition evolved for immediate survival, pattern recognition, and social cohesion our tree shrew like ancestors weren’t burdened with existential dread beyond surviving to the next day.
Expecting the universe to supply inherent purpose is an absurd notion that only results in a cognitive load that inevitably leads to burnout. We either accept that we must construct our own meaning even if it carries no objective cosmic weight or we leave that void open to charlatans, cults, and predatory systems selling pre packaged purpose at 99 cent increments.
Yeah I’m the opposite.
You mean trying to search for existential meaning in your job has a negative effect on your performance? Shocking!
Life is meaningless, no, go on with it
Because ultimately there is no meaning to existing. It’s just…existing.
Chicken egg situation I also think.
People who are satisfied and/or already have meaning in their lifes are obviously not occupied with such questions
Reframe: “Reflecting on one’s role in a meaningless job leads to burnout.”
People with ADHD that can hold a job switch jobs often due to burnout. They also constantly seek novel experiences so unless the study is considering the people with ADHD their results might not represent the general population.
Giving up on wanting to live definitely decreased the amount of effort I was spending on thinking forward…