I agree, but hard work is nothing new. Did the average person throughout history have more leisure than we do? I doubt it. I'm uncertain how to think about burnout in this context. Did they have burnout and were forced to work through it? Were they better at pacing themselves? Maybe the type of work (mental rather than physical labor) or circumstances (working for a corporation) today are more conducive to burnout?
I don’t have any citations, but I don’t think that “work” was at all similar to what we do now. Early hominid work would have involved many different tasks throughout the day, such as tracking, hunting, cleaning, gathering, building, repairing, traveling, etc, right? Compare that to “do this one task 8-16 hours in a row,” and it does seem like a mode of work we would be particularly ill suited for. Orrrr maybe I’m wrong, I’m using general knowledge and inductive reasoning, so I would not be suprised to learn I’m off base here.
> Did the average person throughout history have more leisure than we do? I doubt it.
Recent anthropological and archaeological research is challenging the traditional view that ancient lives were "nasty, brutish, and short." Instead, it appears that many ancient peoples worked less than eight hours per day and frequently took time off for festivals or to travel long distances to visit friends and family. And unlike today, work usually had a more flexible rhythm where short periods of hard work were separated by long periods of light work and rest.
> Instead, it appears that many ancient peoples worked less than eight hours per day
This statement is technically correct if you let the word “many” do the heavy lifting and ignore the people doing the work (slaves, etc)
Claiming that average life in the past was easier is just false, though. If it was easier to shelter, feed, and clothe yourself in the past then those methods wouldn’t have disappeared. You’d be able to do them now if you wanted to. Easier than before, in fact, because you can walk to the store and buy some wood instead of chopping down trees by hand and letting them dry for a few seasons before building, and so on.
Average person took long time off work to travel to visit far away friends? Call me sceptical, because this is provably untrue for pretty much any period and place we have actual resources about.
I don’t know what research they saw, but the claim was mainstreamed by the popular book “Sapiens”. The author romanticized past life and made claims that life was leisurely until agriculture came along and made us all miserable as we toiled working the soil. Before that we supposedly relaxed all day as our food was easy to catch and we didn’t have to build anything because we were always on the move. There are some very obvious problems with that statement that will be easily spotted by anyone who has ever done any hunting or camping.
I'm not sure how environmental factors play into this either. As a Gen-Xer, it often feels like the current late teens and early 20-somethings all have a crippling level of "anxiety" over what should be relatively simple human interaction, and this started well before COVID solidified this influence. Does this in general have an outsized effect on burnout?
I've felt true burnout twice in my life, the first time was after several years without any vacation time taken and about 3 months of 60-80 hour weeks. I literally hit a wall and couldn't even open a project in front of the computer, I was in a haze and not safe to even do anything. My brain was like, "nope!" More recently, a couple years ago it's been a larger state of dissolution about my career without a clear alternative so much as something that I would consider a disablement.
> Did the average person throughout history have more leisure than we do?
Unambiguously yes. This is well documented and impossible to ignore.
Marshal Sahlins described it best in Stone Age Economics but reading Graeber will get you there or Levi Strauss if you’re into the whole structural anthropology thing
It's not about leisure time. It's about the meaning of work. In the past, effects of your work were very direct - carry shitload of stone from one place to another together with your cousin, build a house for you and your family. Nowadays it's all very abstract - have a useless Teams meeting with people you don't care about so that you can do press buttons that maybe change some metrics you don't even understand. What was the last time you felt "I'm happy I built this"?
Except that is bullshit. They did worked the other parts of the year too, just not doing the exact same agricultural work as those few weeks.
That thing simply ignores everything it takes to keep animals alive year round, keep kids alive year round, create and repair tools, keep house warm, create fabric, sew cloth, actually cook without modern tools and so on and so forth.
Just because there is a rush time does not mean workers do nothing the rest od the time.
