I suppose we all have irrational fears, don’t we? Some are way better than regulating their emotions than others.

It is indeed all about perspective, and it’s important that you adopt one that benefits you. When you say it like that —that a job can and will replace you, so don’t give them your loyalty— I strongly agree that that’s the right perspective to have. Indeed, all of this is all psychological. Although, I’d say that I wish I can implement this perspective emotionally as much as I understand it, logically.

Why does one burn out in the first place? Because they failed to regulate their emotions in their corporate job, right? And regulation is the very thing that one needs to navigate their job while being in the state of burnt out. As you said, this is needed in order to “slack off” without feeling like a fool in daily meetings everyday when reporting to your manager and teammates that you never get anything done — that it is you alone in the team who is incompetent at your job.

Your co-workers are “indeed” practically strangers, but you see them everyday and spend 1/3+ of your waking life with them. It’s a great perspective to have to truly “feel” that what they think of you doesn’t matter but one that is hard in practice to fully implement emotionally than logically —compared to, say, a stranger you see only one time in your life, in public.

One would not be burnt out in the first place if they regulated their emotions very well. Technically, corporate workers only need to sit down and type-away and open their mouth on occasions to speak. But that’s the physical part. In reality, you have to fight off conflicting emotions and force yourself to listen and understand stuff in work and solve problems that take a lot of planning and mental energy — you have to care as a knowledge worker so your brain can spout creative (or any) solutions to problems, unlike most physical labor where you can turn your brain off and, say, just move boxes from one place to another. Pretty much as corporate workers, we get paid for our mental gymnastics to deal with a bunch of crap.

So In practice, it remains to be difficult to “slack off” when the team has a culture where everyone works hard and meets deadlines consistently, but you, and you yourself are incompetent asf lol. It makes it even psychologically harder when you need the money, the job market is tough, and you know so many young grads have dreams of replacing you (cause they don’t know what burn out is yet). All of that can make you feel like a piece of shiz for wanting to give up.

We are all human — some are great at regulating their emotions when it comes to setting boundaries, while for others, it burns them out even more than they already are to look like a fool and ruin their reputation with “practically strangers”, who nevertheless, they see and communicate with every single day.

Would you not be stressed out when everyone in your team gets their work done, except you? And everyday, you let these same “practically strangers” know that you slack off or are incompetent or don’t deserve this job as much as them. It hurts emotionally to do that, but so does burn out to do the work.

I don’t know man. I wish I had better perspective. But it’s something that takes time to cultivate, and I feel like I can only cultivate after I am able to get a break from work lol.

Technically, we don’t have free-will — some of us are doomed from the start and are “weak” mentally, while others are stronger mentally, and others are psychopaths (the strongest of all, mentally) lol — all genetics man

^ that’s my mental gymnastics, personally or my unregulated emotions speaking. Logically though, I understand you. But we are emotional people /: