I yesterday wrote about the competitions that people have to face in their work life. These competitions are created to encourage people to run for success and in the end make more money. Stress and pressure weigh heavy on people’s shoulders and it happens more and more often that people reach the top – and then just break down. It is now called burnout, a complete exhaustion, often followed by a depression, a long phase of recovery and the search for individual goals and aims in life.

Especially huge companies don’t really care about the individual. Everyone knows this but once you are in there, in their system of statistics and rewards, you may forget about it, running along with your competitors, the eyes on the company goal, not looking left or right. The goal is a figure, not more. You should have this many appointments in one day, this percentage of these appointments has to turn into sales, that many customers have to sign and that much money should finally end up in the company’s account! You feel you have accomplished something great and the whole company is proud of you. In reality, the leaders are happy about the success, about the figures, about the money in their accounts – not proud of you. While you completely identify with the company and your achievements as well as the success you brought to the company, you are only an instrument for them to get there!

This doesn’t mean that those who don’t work in big companies escape this pressure and stress. Especially self-employed or small firm owners are prone to just as much stress, as they know exactly that their success is on their shoulders! They often have to work hard to see the money come in but they, too, get into the trap of running for more money, more success and all the pressure that comes with this. The people around, society, advertisement, that all supports the rush for success.

It is nothing new that this society is focused on money. It is nothing new that the masses don’t care about the individual. But what about you? Why are you playing along? Why are you following this kind of lifestyle, like a programmed computer? You don’t do anything for your own entertainment anymore, nothing brings you joy except for seeing success at work, you even forget your own interests, your social life is like dead and you don’t pay attention to yourself. Important is only work, success, more and more, no time for anything else.

That is the point when people simply burn out. They break down and that means that they physically and mentally don’t have any strength anymore. Many people experience a loss of memory – all those numbers and names which were so important to them before are just erased from their memory. For many, a time of depression follows. Their whole life collapsed from one minute to another, often not expected by the people around them. They need professional help and while they go and see their psychotherapists every week or so, they need to do a lot of work on themselves to get back to normal life.

Actually no, not get back – start over new and find a balanced way of life for themselves!

Tomorrow I will write a bit more about the ways to recover from burnout.