Let’s be honest. College isn’t just a degree anymore; it’s a full-time simulation of work (read: corporate chaos). I wake up to alarms that sound like air-raid sirens, drag myself through lectures that feel like TED Talks without snacks, and juggle projects, clubs, and a sleep schedule that’s actively suing me for neglect. We’re all walking PowerPoints waiting for the day someone offers us a 9-to-5 so we can… what? Do the same thing but with better lighting and worse coffee?
Somewhere between “I’ll rest after this assignment” and “I’ll rest after placement season,” we’ve become burnt out. Like burnt toast that never got the chance to be bread. We call it ambition, but half the time it’s just panic in professional clothing. I tell myself I’m “building my future” when in reality, I’m just building caffeine tolerance and emotional damage.
And yet, the delusion continues. We romanticise the grind. The notes in my phone read like the diary of someone in a toxic relationship with productivity. I tell myself on a daily basis that after just one more task I’ll have peace. Spoiler: peace has blocked me.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re all just interning for adulthood; learning how to function on five hours of sleep, two coffees, and a personality powered by deadlines. We tell ourselves this is temporary, that life begins after the degree. But what if this is life, and we’re missing it because we’re too busy preparing for the sequel?
If college is the trailer, I’m not sure I want to see the feature film.
The pre-burnout era.
You know that feeling when you’ve done nothing all day but somehow still feel exhausted? That’s our baseline now. We haven’t even started working full-time, yet our brains are throwing “low battery” warnings at 3PM. We call it hustle culture, but it’s really just a collective panic attack with WiFi.
There’s always someone doing more, earning more, achieving faster. You open LinkedIn and boom, some guy your age just built an app, bought a car, and wrote a memoir. Meanwhile, you’re balancing your mental health on one hand and your GPA on the other, and both are slipping.
Everyone’s racing, and no one knows where the finish line is.
We treat exhaustion like it’s a personality trait. “Oh, you’re tired? Same, lol.” No, bestie, we need help. The way we glorify sleeplessness is wild. “I haven’t eaten all day” somehow sounds like a flex now. It’s giving “self-care is for people who finished their work,” which, newsflash, we never will.
And what’s scary is that we’re not even working for ourselves yet. We’re working for an idea of ourselves. The dream version who has her life together, who’s financially stable, who actually folds her laundry. We chase her like she’s a promotion, and in the process, we forget to live as we are right now. If this is the pre-burnout era, adulthood’s gonna need hazard pay.
The cult of work and productivity.
At this point, I think “grind culture” is less a mindset and more a religion. I feel as if I’ve been baptised in burnout. You wake up, check your phone, and the first thing you see is someone posting a 5AM gym story captioned “discipline > motivation.” It’s 12PM and I’ve barely opened my eyes, let alone achieved spiritual transcendence through squats.
We’ve turned being busy into a love language. You can’t even nap without justifying it. “I’m recharging.” No, babe. You’re tired. You’re allowed to be tired without turning it into a productivity strategy. Somewhere along the line, rest became something you have to earn, and that’s honestly criminal.
There’s this constant need to do more. Like, if you’re not learning a new skill, starting a side hustle, or managing Google Calendar, you’re falling behind. Falling behind what? Who decided the syllabus for success? Because I’d like to drop this course.
We’re all acting like we’re in a group project called “The Future” and everyone else is doing more work. It’s exhausting trying to prove you’re working hard enough to deserve basic joy. But guess what? You don’t need a productivity report to justify a day off. Existing is already a full-time job. I’ve started calling my naps “quiet quitting” from reality, and honestly? It’s working.
The slow rebellion.
There’s something rebellious about slowing down. About choosing peace when the world keeps yelling “run.” It feels almost illegal to take a walk without AirPods or eat lunch without scrolling. But that’s exactly why it’s powerful. Rest is resistance.
For the first time in forever, I’m starting to think maybe ambition isn’t about being unstoppable; it’s about knowing when to stop.
Maybe I don’t want to sprint to the top if it means I forget to breathe on the way. Maybe success doesn’t need to taste like burnt-out brain cells and overpriced coffee. Maybe it can taste like mangoes in the sun and laughter that doesn’t check the time.
It’s weird, though. When you stop rushing, you start noticing things again. You remember what music sounds like when it’s not background noise. You realise your friends have been hinting at burnout too. You start calling it “balance” instead of “laziness.” That’s growth.
The world won’t hand you permission to rest, so you have to steal it. You have to decide that your peace matters more than your productivity score. It’s not easy and it definitely feels like rebellion. But maybe rebellion is exactly what we need. Because if living slowly is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Living before the LinkedIn announcement.
There’s this lie we tell ourselves: once I get the job, I’ll start living. Spoiler: that’s just capitalism in a cute outfit. Because then you’ll say, once I get the promotion, once I make this much money, once I retire. The goalpost keeps running, and you’re just there: chasing, gasping, missing everything.
We keep confusing “working hard” with “having purpose.” But purpose isn’t about productivity. It’s about presence. It’s about being here, now, not in some future where your to-do list is finally empty. Newsflash! It never will be.
When I imagine my future, I don’t dream of a corner office. I dream of balance. I dream of waking up without dread, of laughing without checking the time, of working because I want to, not because I forgot how to stop.
We were not built to grind. At least, I’ve done so much of it, I cannot imagine this being the rest of my life. I believe we were built to live, to love, to mess up, to take naps that turn into full-blown sleep. If I ever forget that, please, someone, unplug my laptop and drag me outside. The deadline can wait. But my life won’t.
So yeah, maybe I’ll never be the first to clock in. Maybe I’ll never send that 2AM “done” message again. But if working less means living more, I think I can survive the scandal. Because in this economy of exhaustion, choosing joy is the only promotion that actually matters.
Want more stories that call out burnout and celebrate being human? Join Her Campus at MUJ, where we clock out of chaos and clock into clarity. Written by Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ, who just got promoted to peace.