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burnout is on the rise in one survey 77%
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of respondents said that they had felt
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burned out at work people are quiet
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quitting or they're just quitting their
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jobs or they wish they could just drop
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out of it all stop working and do
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something that mattered instead we're
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stressed we're anxious and we feel like
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we just can't do this anymore so what is
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burnout and why is it increasing well if
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we want to answer that question we
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should go and actually look at the
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history of the word
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[Music]
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take a look at this chart the word
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burnout doesn't really start appearing
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in books until the 1950s and it doesn't
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really take off in popularity until the
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1980s that's when the psychologist
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freudenberger published his book burnout
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the high cost of high achievement
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fredburger actually came up with this
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concept by analyzing himself he was so
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overcome with Stress and Anxiety that he
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wasn't even able to get out of bed or
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move at times he said that he couldn't
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even feel Joy in one interview
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freudenberger described burnout like
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this burnout really is a response to
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stress it's a response to frustration
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it's a response to a demand that an
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individual may make upon thems in terms
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of a requirement for perfectionism or
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drive now after freudenberg's work
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psychologists started to get a bit more
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rigorous in how they described burnout
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the Yale psychologist Lori Santos breaks
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it down into three parts you're burned
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out when you feel emotionally exhausted
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so you can't handle any more burdens the
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metaphor that Santos uses is a house of
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cards if there's even one more more
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burden or one more piece of stress added
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to your life the whole thing is going to
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collapse the second sign is
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depersonalization this is when you start
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to be cynical you start to question
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people's intentions and
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depersonalization also gets in the way
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of forming authentic human connections
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and the third sign of burnout Santos
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says is a sense of personal
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ineffectiveness no matter what you do it
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isn't going to matter you can't change
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anything that last part I think is
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really at the heart of the issue there's
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a reason so many of us feel burned out
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especially about work and it's because
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we think we're working jobs that don't
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matter that's an idea that was
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popularized by the Anthropologist David
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Graber Graber came up with a term for
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these sorts of jobs which he calls
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jobs and he defines a
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job as a form of paid employment that is
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so completely pointless unnecessary or
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pernicious that even the employee cannot
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justify its existence even though as
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part of the conditions of employment the
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employee feels obliged to pretend this
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is not the case and this idea of Graber
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it really resonated with people Graber
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put this idea out there in a really
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small online magazine called strike and
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when it was released it went viral I
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think something like a million people
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read the article and actually the
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Magazine's website couldn't keep up and
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ended up crashing when Graber was
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describing these pointless jobs
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well people thought that reflected their
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experiences in one ugv poll 37% of
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people said that their jobs were
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meaningless or specifically they said
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their jobs weren't contributing meaning
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mean f to society so we don't lose sight
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of the plot here let me break out how a
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job might be related to burnout
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burnout seems to partly stem from a
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sense of futility like nothing that you
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do matters or can change anything well
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if you spend 8 hours a day which is a
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huge part of your waking hours working a
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job that you think doesn't accomplish
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anything then it's not hard to see how
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you would think that in general your
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life is futile no matter what you do
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nothing's going to change and nothing's
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going to get better Graber is often
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criticized for some of the examples that
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he gives for jobs like
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actuaries turns out actually an actuary
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is kind of a useful job and it might
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even be the case that actuaries think
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that their jobs are quite useful so they
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don't really meet the conditions of
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being a job like graper would
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say but some sociologists have tried to
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find empirical support for graber's
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thesis and they found something a lot of
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people do think their jobs are
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it's just not the jobs that Graber
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expected it's people often who work in
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things like Transportation or shipping
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these are jobs that are characterized by
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monotony no matter what you do you're
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going to basically do the same thing
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tomorrow you do the same thing over and
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over and over and over and over and
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over I actually once had a seasonal job
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working at UPS uh my whole job was to
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grab packages as they were coming down a
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conveyor belt and then put them onto
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trucks and there's something really
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strange about the fact that you'll do
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this for a few hours and you'll still
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see this endless flow of packages coming
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it's like as if you barely put a dent in
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it despite the fact that you're tired
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and you feel sore and later on when I
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went to work at some tech companies I
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actually often felt the same cuz it felt
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like we were always bouncing from
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Project to project or we all had to
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pretend that we were excited about some
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big new corporate initiative even though
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like we all knew it wasn't going to make
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a difference oh great they've come up
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with like some brand new metric in order
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to measure our performance but it turns
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out everything's exactly the same it's
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just that the format of my quarterly
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evaluation has changed slightly and we
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all have to pretend like it matters
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everyone that I knew and talked to about
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this was very cynical even if management
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sort of wanted us to pretend otherwise
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we were all like Copus but instead of
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pushing Boulders up a hill we were
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sitting behind laptops and going to
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meetings and kind of just getting by and
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at least a lot of people that I knew
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they felt burned out and they felt
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burned out because we felt like we
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weren't ever accomplishing something of
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course burnouts not just limited to our
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jobs it can actually in
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all of our lives and that's because as
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one philosopher puts it we live in a
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burnout
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Society that's the title of this book by
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the philosopher B CH Han despite this
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being a really short book Han's ideas
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are quite dense and so I just feel
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compelled to pause the video and say hey
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you should go and read this book you
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could probably read it in an afternoon
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and get a sense of it and it'll do more
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for you than watching this YouTube video
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at the core of Hans analysis is this
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idea that we live in an achievement
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Society in this Society we are
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constantly striving to do more we want
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to achieve more we want to produce more
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and on top of that we always feel like
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we have to think positively about it so
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Han says that the root of our problem
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isn't negativity it it's actually excess
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positivity now if you take a quick look
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at some management websites when they
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talk about burnout they always tell you
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to just change your mindset and try to
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be more optimistic about the future but
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if Han is right that is exactly wrong
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it's actually that kind of forced
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positivity that makes us feel more
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burned out in the long run and that's
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really similar to what freudenberger
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said at the top of the video it's that
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drive towards perfectionism achievement
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and productivity we never let ourselves
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stop being productive we always want to
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do more in fact even when we do things
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for fun we often rationalize it or
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justify it because we say it's going to
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recharge our batteries so that then we
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can go back and do even better work the
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philosopher bertran Russell puts it this
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way the modern man thinks that
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everything ought to be done for the sake
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of something else and never for its own
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sake and Han and Russell following in a
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long line of philosophers would say that
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if we want to counteract burnout and
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this sense of futility in the world we
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have to learn how to be idle again we
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like to use idleness as an insult we say
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things like Idle Hands are the devil's
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workshop but in the ancient world like
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say in the world of Aristotle Plato
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idleness was actually seen as important
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to a good life because when you're Idol
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that's when you have time to contemplate
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and contemplation is the best kind of
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Life at least According to Aristotle now
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for someone like Aristotle contemplation
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basically meant being like a philosopher
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scientist for many people that's not
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their idea of the best sort of life but
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buron wrestle has a slightly broader
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view of what one could do in your idle
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time it's when you're free from the
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necessity of work where you don't have
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to work in order to meet your needs or
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to live a decent life and you also don't
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feel driven to do anything except for
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its own sake you just end up doing
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things that matter because they matter
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some people would just use all of their
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Idol time their Leisure Time To Have Fun
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more to relax but Russell thought that
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for a lot of people they would use it to
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explore the universe or to produce great
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art or to perfect their craft because
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they cared about it they'd be able to
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look at what they were doing and they
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could see that it was good and thus they
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wouldn't really feel burnout it just
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wouldn't apply doesn't mean they
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couldn't get frustrated it's just that
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burnout wouldn't really apply but in our
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world that's hard to do you know B Johan
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says that we need to learn to be bored
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and it turns out just sitting around and
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being bored is really hard when we're so
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used to a world of constant stimulation
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and a world of constant productivity but
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maybe learning how to be bored is that
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first step towards learning how to be
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Idol and actually using our time well
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for things that matter now this video
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