Last week, I met a friend at an event who had gone through what’s commonly called burnout. She looked unsettled, but unfortunately I couldn’t learn much about what she’d been through, the timing wasn’t right for a long talk.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard of someone reaching that point. To burn out because of work, the phrase itself feels terrifying if you imagine it literally. A person consumed by pressure, like a drill head grinding against concrete until smoke begins to rise.

I can’t pretend to fully understand what it feels like for those who’ve experienced it, but I’ve met many and read about it often. Personally, I know what it means to live under psychological pressure, to carry anxiety, and I know what depression feels like. I can imagine the pain: waking up each morning in a body that begs for relief, while you put on the mask and head to work. You smile at your manager and colleagues while inside you’re burning. Your spirit consumed like fuel in a giant machine called a company or institution. A machine so vast it doesn’t care that you’re human, only that the numbers line up and the indicators stay green.

Most modern workplaces are designed this way. If something happens to you, there are plenty of people waiting to take your place. Either you get fixed within a certain time frame, or you lose your position, with all the financial, emotional, and sometimes social costs that come with it.

Many ignore the call to rest and keep going. Loans are waiting, bills pile up, children need care. To realize you’re burning out and still be unable to stop, that’s a tragedy in itself.

Some, after long battles with themselves, finally decide to listen to that inner call and step away. At best, the company offers a kind of “maintenance program.” Don’t worry, they’ll repair you, oil your gears, and slot you back into the machine. “No one wants you to lose your job,” they’ll remind you again and again. But this logic only adds fuel to the fire.

Burnout, in my view, isn’t just fatigue. It’s a slow erasure of the self. You find yourself trapped between choices you never wanted: either continue and crush your spirit and body, or stop and lose much of what you’ve built. Personally, I’d rather take the financial losses if it means saving my body and soul. To withdraw, to gather yourself again, away from the grinding mill.

Deep down, I long for a world with more humane options: where a person can step away without the looming threat of hunger or collapse. Where there’s at least a minimum safety net, and time to breathe without an imposed deadline. After all, isn’t work supposed to be a means? When did it become an end in itself? And how do we return to seeing a human as a human, not a machine? A soul whose worth can’t be measured in hours or numbers. No one should have to burn just to prove their worth, or simply because they need a decent life.

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