The Unpopular Truth About Quitting vs. Burning Out
There’s this deeply ingrained belief that quitting is a moral failure, like you personally betrayed capitalism by stepping away from something that was actively draining your soul, while burning out is somehow noble, poetic, and worthy of a LinkedIn post with a sepia-toned selfie and the caption “Growth isn’t linear.” We glamorize exhaustion as dedication and frame quitting as weakness, when in reality most of us are just walking around emotionally crispy, mistaking nervous system collapse for ambition, and calling it “hustle culture” because that sounds better than “I haven’t felt joy in six months.” The truth is, burnout and quitting are not opposites; they are often siblings, raised in the same household of unrealistic expectations, people-pleasing tendencies, and the terrifying fear that if we stop performing, we will disappear. Burnout is not just “being tired,” and anyone who says it is has clearly never stared at their laptop with the blank, haunted eyes of someone whose b...
