Americans are Finished with the Rat Race

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Is it even worth it anymore? Is it worth it? The rat race, the nineto-five shuffle, trying to scrape by just so you can pay bills the next month. I more and more people are feeling like they're asking the question, is it even worth it? Right? Is this the career that you're going to be in for the rest of your life if you're barely scraping by?

[00:00:22]Can you do this for 30, 40, 50 years until you retire? Well, more and more people are asking the question, is it worth it? And burnout and corporate burnout especially is really increasing as the cost of living continues to rise and it's been high now for years and we've seen bigger um bigger numbers in these surveys where people are stressed out, burned out, what they call corporate burnout. In fact, I'm going to hear from a few people today, but I uh found this and this is uh pretty common. Take a look.

[00:00:57]Corporate burnout extremely common with studies showing over 60% of American employees report experiencing some sort of workplace burnout, career burnout, and it may be from working multiple jobs. Uh, it's become a baseline experience for many professionals heavily driven by unrealistic workloads.

[00:01:16]Blurred boundaries and always on workplace expectations.

[00:01:21]I'm surprised they didn't put the cost of living in there. But we've got overall prevalence about 66% folks.

[00:01:26]That's two and three people. 66%.

[00:01:29]Generational divide. The younger people experiencing it more. Younger generations are disappropriately affected. A recent study found that 83% of a professionals aged 25 to 34 are feeling burned out. Is it because they're lazy? Some of them, yes, but for the most part, no. It's the cost of living. You used to be able to in this country get by on one income, buy an entry- level home, work your way up the ladder, if you will. Now, it's impossible to even get started for so many people. Uh the manager penalty. Mid to senior level managers report some some of the highest stress and burnout levels often driven by conflicting pressures of supporting teams while satisfying executive demands. That's I can see that I've been a manager and I've worked in um supervisor manager positions and dealing with all the different personalities that you have to deal with and people think that you're not treating them fairly or that you're treating someone else better. It's uh it's kind of exhausting. a physical and mental toll around 45% of workers feel emotionally drained from their work with over one-third reporting symptoms like anxiety and trouble sleeping. You ever have a dream about your job? Like you wake up and you're doing some weird task that you do at your job or talking to a customer, whatever. You're like, "Wow, that's weird. I'm dreaming about my job.

[00:02:49]I'm taking my job home with me." So, it's not done. Even when I'm done with the job, it's not done with me because it's still up here. It's living rentree in my head. We're going to take a listen to a few people here on this exact thing and hope to hear from you down in the comments on some of these. All right, here's someone that says, "Burnout season." She says, "Burnout season is upon me.

[00:03:10]>> I'm so burnt out from work that even on the weekends, I do not feel like I am resting." And that's the thing. I take vacations. Like, I have weekends off.

[00:03:20]It's not like I'm working like 24 hours a day or anything like that. like I have my off time, but it's not a matter of like physical exhaustion. It's like mental exhaustion. So, even if I have like time off and I'm just like resting, I'm like at home or whatever, I still feel like I'm not resting. So, does anybody have any ideas for what to do about burnout? Because your girl is so burnt out that she's burnt to a crisp.

[00:03:49]Even if you're not totally stressed out at your job about job duties, what we're seeing is a lot of people are just stressed out about life, right?

[00:03:59]Even if your job's not stressful, but maybe it's not that stressful, but your paycheck not getting you to the end of the month and then you look and the bills are due again after you've already paid your bills. Even if your job is not that stressful, just the fact your financial situation that could be stressful. Uh, somebody in comments said, "Weekends are filled with chores.

[00:04:18]So, no, we're not resting. I'm in the same boat. Every weekend is just me sitting alone in silence trying to recover from the past week to get ready for the next week. Wow, that's pretty pretty dire to think about. You're just recovering. Weekends are just for recovering from a fiveday work week. If you're lucky enough to only work five days a week, you're just recovering on the weekend and then start all over Monday or whatever your work schedule is. Time off is not time off. It's more like you're just recovering to get back and go back into the fight, get back into it again and again and again.

[00:04:52]People always say that Gen Z and millennials are so lazy, but they're just burned out because they're working 40 to 80 hours a week and at the end of the month they have absolutely nothing to show for it. Gas is through the roof.

[00:05:02]Groceries are through the roof. The health care system is a disaster. You do this for so long and then all of a sudden you're burned out and you're tired and then at the end of the month you're in more debt than when you started. So then we've got older people that are like, "Well, no, it's because you're spending too much money on coffee or you're spending too much on this."

[00:05:17]No, it's not. We can all cut things out to help ourselves financially, but that's not the reason that we're in the situation we're in. I mean, just look at the cost of renting an apartment now.

[00:05:25]Like, almost nobody can afford to rent an apartment on their own anymore.

[00:05:28]People are now living with roommates into their 30s. In our parents' day, that was unheard of. Like, people didn't do that. They bought a house straight out of high school and they started a family. Like, people aren't doing that anymore. People are now holding off on having kids because they can't afford to add another person to the family. They can barely afford to take care of themselves. So, when you want to say that Gen Z and millennials are so lazy or they're so whiny because they're complaining about work, look at how much things have changed in this country.

[00:05:55]People are just sick of doing the same thing over and over and having nothing to show for it. People >> Lot to unpack there. Yes, my parents right out of high school. Well, my dad was in the military. So, right out of that, 22 years old, bought a house, no problem. One income, my mom stayed at home. She raised three kids.

[00:06:16]And now that's it's possible, but it's it's getting more and more difficult.

[00:06:20]And like I said, two two out of three people, two out of three, 66% roughly are feeling this this burnout, like they're not getting anywhere, stress, anxiety, and maybe they are buying houses. Some of these people in this survey, maybe they're buying houses and uh climbing the corporate ladder, climbing the wealth ladder, if you will, building equity, all that good stuff that buying a real estate does, but there's still stress and burned out. So, you've got to look at the other side of it, too. A lot of times, companies are just looking to get more and more out of people. And now, as the threat of getting your job replaced by AI or just getting laid off, downsizing, that threat gets bigger. People are feeling more stressed like they have to do more, right? To make themselves worth it to the company to reduce your odds of getting laid off, right? It's insane. It's just going to continue to get worse as companies looking to cut the labor force. Uh we've seen the layoffs all over the place. Huge layoffs. They're looking to get rid of you, but yet you have to dedicate yourself to being a top-notch employee and trying your hardest every day. even though you know that they're looking to get rid of you at the end of the day.

[00:07:33]>> You know, my mindset has changed a lot since I went through a period of time where I was working like three to five jobs simultaneously and going like days and days without sleep. I used to think, oh well, if you want something in life, you have to work hard for it, right? I don't think that anymore. Sometimes I feel like you're just working harder and just not smarter. And sometime I also believe too that it's not always easy ways to work smarter. Everybody don't have those type of advantages in life. I do believe though like that life should not be this hard and like I don't even think like life is hard. There are good parts of life. I think like just this economy in this country. I honestly just don't hate it here. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't if I didn't have family here and roots here and reasons I had to be here. I wouldn't anymore to be honest. I would sell everything I own and I would just freaking move because it's just like I don't feel like anybody should have to >> Okay, she's talking about relocating.

[00:08:26]She said I don't want to be here anymore. or I was thinking something else. I was thinking the worst. But okay, she wants to relocate. Yeah, if you could find a better deal in another country, but relocating especially to another relocating just from one house to another is hard enough. Moving from one country to another, the prep, the uh getting all your legal documents in order. It's it's a a mountain task.

[00:08:51]Overwork to this capacity to have not even a lot. Like my whole thing is like I wish that I could work the way that I feel like I've been working for the past years and have a mansion have, you know, have like a I don't know, just something that to show for it. I don't really have much to show for it. I just been working myself down and now at this point I'm like so over capacity. I don't even have like I can't even do it like I used to.

[00:09:14]I used to be able to stay up for three or four days, push through. Oh, hustle, hustle, hustle, clock in one job, clock out the next job. I cannot physically do that. I've learned that now. Like I think I pushed my body to my limit for so many years working so many damn jobs simultaneously that like at this point like if I don't get enough sleep and I'm not even trying to be dramatic y'all.

[00:09:33]Like literally if I don't get enough sleep I cannot push through. I will fall asleep anywhere. The other day I was driving off 3 hours of sleep. I was so tired. I I literally closed my eyes behind the wall. I was so damn scared I had to pull over. I had to pull over just like just for a second cuz I'm like I can't like I just can't do it. My body is just shutting down. Like I don't even think rest is a negotiable. It's like, oh, you know, I'm going study out and try to call. No, none of that works anymore. None of it works. It just I need rest. Like, I just need rest. I need a break. I need like to just not have to do anything for like a month.

[00:10:03]Literally, like I just a month in isolation. Like, I just I can't because I'm just so over capacity, y'all. Like, I can't even show up for myself. It's just everything is becoming too much.

[00:10:12]For real. Like, I'm just not even And it sucks because there's so many like things that I was looking forward to.

[00:10:16]I'm not even looking forward to them anymore because I'm so tired. The only thing I can look forward to is the next time I see my bed and hoping and praying that I get to stay in there and get the amount of rest that I need. And it's not just me laying down for 2 hours and get back up to it. Like, it's just I can't I can't with this economy. I can't with this country. I don't think people should have to work this hard. I think I just hate this country. Like, I just hate it. There's nothing about it that's good to me anymore. And like honestly, my my people never like they never was meant to be here anyways. We were never meant to be here. all the sadness and sorrow and stuff that like my people had to go through just to be here. Like, you know, I don't know.

[00:10:56]I don't know, y'all. All I know is I need a damn break. I I can't like at this point. And it sucks because I can't even afford to take a break. If I were to take like a week off of like if I was take a month off of work, a week, let's say a week. If I take a week off of work, I'm going to have to work two additional full weeks to make up for that week.

[00:11:15]>> Yep. Because she's so behind on bills, she's going to have to work more. take time off and you just feel like you're getting further behind because everything all the bills are racking up in the background. And it's interesting that we're she said this country, she keeps talking about this country, this country, move out of this country. Um good luck if the grass is greener on the other side. But it's interesting though in this country we've got people of a certain group or certain um mind mindset that say, "Oh, this is the greatest economy ever. Look at these.

[00:11:46]Look at the numbers. Consumers are spending. Look at the GDP. It's so great. We're the number one country.

[00:11:53]We're booming. We're the hottest economy in the world. Right? You hear that?

[00:11:57]Especially if you turn tune into certain news stations that or certain angles that want you to believe uh a specific narrative, right? So much somebody in this comment said, "What I realized is the people that work the hardest are the ones with the least money." Isn't that true? Isn't that true? You look at the people in the top 10% and you could say they they've worked hard to earn what they have, but are they really grinding 9 to5? Are they really tired and burned out at the end of the day? No. Because they've delegated all the hard duties to everybody else and they're sitting there collecting collecting the big checks, right? I mean, let me know in comments if you disagree with me or anybody that we're hearing from today, but this is what I see in uh corporate America and it's getting to be bigger and bigger problems. All right, see what she has to say.

[00:12:47]>> I'm going to hold your hand while I say this. You're not lazy. You're exhausted.

[00:12:51]Because honestly, there's a difference.

[00:12:53]Lazy is wanting not to do anything. But you, you get up, you go to work, you handle all your responsibilities. You push through even when you don't want to. That's not laziness. That's a burnout. And what people don't talk about enough is this. When you're constantly overworked, constantly expected to give more, constantly running on empty, your body naturally starts to slow down. Your motivation drops, your energy drops, your patience drop, and now suddenly you feel like something is wrong with you. But it's not you. It's the environment you're in.

[00:13:28]Cuz absolutely no one could function at 100% when they're constantly being drained. And the worst part about this is workplaces will definitely make you feel like you're not doing enough. While there's reasons that you're running on empty, so nope, you're not lazy. You're just tired of pouring into something that never pours back on you. So be honest. Have you been feeling like this lately? Comment tired if this hits you.

[00:13:54]And >> oh yeah, you know, a lot of people are going to be commenting on that one. Um, somebody just said, "Yeah, real tired.

[00:14:03]tired. Um, I feel that you are talking about my situation, tired and burned out, right? What do we do about this, folks? And it's like you get some time off and then maybe you're posting on social media and and you're trying to look like your life is wonderful because you don't want your people uh your friends or people you went to high school with, people you grew up with, you don't want them to think you're miserable. You want them to think you're successful and happy.

[00:14:29]>> [laughter] >> So, a lot of people are just uh I think they're faking on social media. A lot of people are. And some people are successful. I'm not I'm not saying they're not. And they're going to show off their toys, their new cars, and uh their houses, and their vacations.

[00:14:43]They're going to show you the pictures of their food, where they're eating at.

[00:14:46]And maybe they're just trying to share it. I'm not trying to say everybody's trying to show off here, but um you guys know what I mean. There's certain people out there that uh that seems to be a thing with.

[00:14:57]All right. Here's somebody that looks a bit stressed out. Here what she has to say.

[00:15:01]>> Nobody will ever convince me that working is normal. Waking up tired, dragging yourself out of bed, giving all your energy to a job that will replace you in two seconds. Coming home drain, too tired to enjoy your kids, your peace, your life, or even yourself. And somehow this is what we call normal. No, this is survival, y'all. This is burnt out dressed up as responsibility. This is people breaking their necks, breaking their backs to barely make it, and we're supposed to smile and act like we grateful for it. And you mean to tell me we only get one life and most of it is supposed to be spent stressed, underpaid, overlooked, and exhausted?

[00:15:41]That would never sit right with me. And I'm not saying people shouldn't work.

[00:15:45]I'm saying this system is not normal.

[00:15:48]It's not normal to have anxiety every Sunday about Monday. It's not normal to cry in the parking lot before a shift.

[00:15:54]And it's not normal to work full time and still be behind on bills. And it's not normal to feel like your whole life belongs to a company. And they told us this was just part of being an adult.

[00:16:07]But honestly, a lot of us are waking up and realizing this ain't living. This is existing. I want more than survival. I want peace, y'all. I want freedom. I want to actually enjoy my life without feeling guilty for needing rest. So no, nobody will ever convince me that this is normal.

[00:16:26]>> She's [snorts] talking to me there. And what she said there, I felt like that my whole life. Even Even when I started working in high school, I was working summer jobs and at the end of the day, I would be like, "Wow, tired. My feet hurt." It was a job where you had to stand up all day.

[00:16:42]I'm like, "This can't be normal. People do this for 40, 50 years.

[00:16:46]My feet hurt. I was I was just kind of grumpy, right, from just being at a job for eight hours. And is it normal? Is this normal? Should this be the way that it actually is? Somebody in comments on this one said, "Seeing co-workers more than family?" Yeah. You ever felt like that? If you take away the hours that you sleep, if so, your waking hours, a lot of times your waking hours, you're around co-workers more than you are your family. It's crazy to think about, but that's that's the new normal. That's not even new anymore. This is cor This is corporate America. This is uh life in the modern world for most people. All right, we got one last one here. It's not even a video. It's just a picture.

[00:17:27]It says uh when you're tired of working and it shows somebody like some lady in in her 20s and she's marrying somebody looks like maybe in his 80s, maybe she's in her 30s. And somebody in comments said, "The older I get, the more I understand. Just trying to the gold digger thing. just trying to uh find financial freedom without having to burn yourself out. So, what do you think about this, folks? Are you feeling it? I know I felt it many times. Kind of in a spot now where I don't really feel it that bad, but I know exactly what these people are talking about. Been there, done that. Um, and I'm worried for I'm worried for the younger people. I've said that before here. I'm working word for the younger people in my family, for the younger people all across uh America. just this uh just this system.

[00:18:10]It seems to be uh it's unbalanced, but it just seems to be tilted in one direction and just it just keeps getting tilted more. Doesn't it feel like that? Tilted more towards the the people of the top 10% getting more and more. It's just not just me feeling that. That's what am I trying to say here? It's not just me feeling that.

[00:18:29]These statistics show that the wealth gap, the wealth divide is increasingly going, the wealth is going to the top 10%. We have the top 10% now make up one half of all consumer spending. So one half of all economic growth basically is the top 10% spending. We've got 90% of all the stocks in the stock market. 90% owned by the top 10%. So you want to talk about a wealth divide. It's not just you. You're not just imagining it.

[00:18:58]Even the numbers say that numbers don't lie. What do you think about this, folks? Please drop a comment. Hope to see you in the next video. Stay stress free. We'll bump my microphone. Stay stress free and um what do I usually say? Keep stacking. Uh keep your head above water. Keep keep chucking and uh you know, we'll see if we have any good changes coming up here in this country.

[00:19:18]Peace.