The cure to burnout is well known. It’s time off, time away from the thing you burned yourself out on. I think intuitively we know it takes time to truly recover and be ready to return to work and not be miserable
I looked online for how long it takes to recover from burnout, and the lowest number I saw was 30 days, where they stated it was ambitious and unrealistic to expect, but still possible. The higher numbers were in the range of years. The most common number seemed to be 3-6 months
We only have 11 mandated vacation days per year in America. The average is 17 days. Only 6% of workers get 30+ days
So imagine you’re working really hard towards some goal early in your career to make a name for yourself and get ahead. By the end of it, chances are you’re terribly burned out. But what can you do? You’ll not have the time you need to truly recover and get back to doing good work
So, from very early in your career until you potentially get a sabbatical (which is like over 10 years for some people), you’re effectively just living life in a constant state of burnout, never having the time to recover
I’ve been feeling this myself. My last job burned me out hard, it’s been months but I feel I haven’t recovered at all because I still have to work