By: Peyton Sanders | Staff Writer
It’s the middle of the spring semester, and the exhaustion is visible as we navigate campus, slumped shoulders in the library, unanswered texts, and the apologetic emails that begin with “I’m sorry for the late response.”
What’s less visible is the guilt that follows the fatigue, quietly convincing students that struggling means they are doing something wrong.
Dr. Shannon Sauer-Zavala from Psychology Today explains, “One of the hardest parts of recovering from burnout is letting go of the guilt. It’s easy to think: If I stop, everything will fall apart. But guilt is a mental trick—it convinces us we’re doing something wrong when we’re actually protecting ourselves.”
Burnout, career, and academic stress are on the rise and show no signs of stopping. To deconstruct fears and guilt, it can be helpful to examine their sources.
In America, at least, people who are fearful of falling behind in productivity can trace their anxieties back to the religions that shaped the colonies and the complications of the Industrial Revolution.
“The Protestant Work Ethic”
The United States was “settled”, or taken from the native population, by many religious groups. One group dominant in Massachusetts and New England was the Protestant community. Protestants were believers in predestination and a strong work ethic, though that did not stop them from using their own scripture to propagate slavery.
The “Protestant Work Ethic” is a term created by German Sociologist Max Weber to describe Protestant values and beliefs in predestination. Many of his assertions about Protestants specifically being more hard-working and the idea that they had a unique penchant for hard work not found in other cultures have been debunked.
Despite this, one observation that held true in Protestant belief was that working hard is in the service of God, and the hardships and challenges that accompany it were part of that process.
Protestantism is not the major religion in the United States anymore, but the idea of hard work being good and rest being bad lives on in American culture. This belief would go on to become the more secular ideology of the industrial work ethic during the Industrial Revolution.
“Time is Money”
The saying “Time is Money” is often traced back to Benjamin Franklin in 1748, but earlier iterations date back as far as the fifth century BCE.
Either way, the importance of using time wisely and not wasting it on rest became a core value of the Industrial Revolution for adults and children.
Work was not restricted to daylight hours, and clocks were becoming standardized. At this point, they were still mostly accessible to factory owners, who often used that privilege to turn the clock back and get more hours of labor out of their workers, according to SJX.
The increased availability of pocket watches evened out this imbalance, but there was still much work to be done to regulate factories. Over time, child labor was abolished, and safety measures were implemented to ensure workers were not exposed to dangerous toxins.
Every labor right was hard-fought and is not guaranteed to last without consistent effort.
Potential Solutions
The current labor landscape is fairly bleak, marked by layoff culture and job application scams. There is clear value in not selling off your free time in order to stay ahead. Balance is important when career fulfillment is not automatic.
Dr. Sauer-Zavala addresses the guilt tied to rest, “When you recharge, you’re better able to show up for the people and projects that matter most. Taking care of yourself isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a sign of strength.”
Rest is not a reward for finishing everything on your list. It is a requirement. The culture that tells you to push through everything is the same culture that made you feel guilty for being tired. Push back. Make time for yourself. If your schedule has left no room for it, this is not a personal failing; it is a conversation worth having with your professors, your advisor, and yourself.
If you still can’t let go of the internal guilt of taking a step back. Visit HornetCare and set up a counseling appointment. It’s included in your tuition. Remember that burnout is a health issue, not a moral one.
