There's a specific kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with sleep. It comes from years of translating yourself into a version that other people could handle, and the exhaustion lives in the gap between who you are and who you've been performing so consistently that even you forgot there was a difference. - Silicon Canals

"A significant portion of what we call workplace burnout isn't caused by overwork. It's caused by over-translation. The exhaustion doesn't come from the job. It comes from the person you have to pretend to be in order to do the job."

"This kind of tiredness doesn't register on any burnout inventory. It shows up as a quiet blankness when someone asks you what kind of work you'd actually find meaningful."

"Most professionals have been adjusting that congruence since their first job, learning which parts of themselves earned approval and which parts earned silence, correction, or being passed over."

Fatigue in the workplace is often misattributed to lack of rest or overwork. A significant cause of burnout is the effort of maintaining a professional identity that doesn't align with one's true self. This sustained act of self-translation leads to cognitive exhaustion, which is not captured by traditional burnout assessments. Professionals often struggle to identify meaningful work due to years of conforming to expectations, resulting in a disconnect between their internal experiences and outward behaviors.

Read at Silicon Canals