I read about burnout from time to time. Most comments suggest that it’s not just about working for long hours. My take is similar. Burnout is not necessarily related to hours, but rather to control. If you’re working on a project where you can express yourself, you can probably work longer with little risk of burnout. Otherwise, even if the work is easy or simple, if you don’t have control over the outcome or the results don’t carry your name, working less won’t prevent burnout.

In March, I realized that I had lost my enthusiasm for my work. It’s mainly a writing job. I noticed I was forcing myself to work. Normally, this shouldn’t happen. I like writing, I like the team, and I like my colleagues, so what was happening? I asked for a sabbatical to start in July. Now, I think it was a case of burning out. I was becoming alienated from the job, and it was depleting my willpower. I usually avoid work that requires me to spend my willpower over a long period.

I’ve begun to think that burnout is something similar to what Marx called alienation. Software development (or technical writing) is mostly a mental job. Your motivation and your talents should align. Otherwise, it becomes a chore, and you have to spend more and more willpower. Willpower, as recent studies show, is a finite resource. So, spending it on something for a long period probably causes burnout.

So, why does alienation happen in our line of work? It’s probably the same story as in less mental, more menial jobs. One has to feel that they are building a cathedral instead of just building a wall. If you believe that you’re building a cathedral, even if you work much longer, your enthusiasm rarely wanes. If you believe you’re just doing what your superiors ask, it shadows the vision that leads to enthusiasm.

Burnout is a natural defense mechanism for the second type of work. People need meaning in their lives more than anything else. We can suppress our emotions for some time to achieve material benefits. But if we can’t find meaning in the endeavor and just postpone that meaning to an indefinite future, it leaks. And eventually, it breaks.

This is probably why lower-level employees experience burnout more than those at higher levels. At higher levels, you need a vision—albeit sometimes a superficial one—to manage people. At lower levels, this is often less possible.

To avoid burnout, we need more meaning in our work. If you can’t find meaning in your work, at least try to find some outside of it.