Member-only story
Mid-Career Burnout Is Real
What to do when your professional career becomes a grind
Bob stared at his iced tea and grilled salmon salad. A senior partner at a regional investment bank, he earns a very substantial income. He had asked me to lunch “just to catch up,” but I suspected he harbored a more urgent agenda. And here it was.
“Paul, I still have 15 years left until retirement,” he shared solemnly. “I work most weekends, and every morning, I have to drag myself to the office. What am I going to do?”
Since I started my podcast about the connection between money, work, and meaning, I’ve received many emails from people like Bob: middle-aged and successful on paper, but grappling to maintain a connection to the sterling career that was once the professional cornerstone of a perfect life.
Let’s be frank: The melancholy of the affluent corporate types doesn’t rank near the top of the world’s most pressing problems. But for the employee who is at an age when professional change is difficult, the malaise that stems from exhaustion and a lack of purpose can saturate every corner of their existence. Common work-life balance advice doesn’t cut it here. No conversation with a spouse, walk around the block, or fishing trip with their kid — if there’s even time for such extravagance — will answer the existential question, “What the fuck am I doing with my life?”
I recently spoke with Yale law professor Daniel Markovits, author of The Meritocracy Trap, in which he describes the problem of mid-career burnout. Centuries ago, aristocrats owned assets like coal mines or railroads that generated income while the idle proprietors slept. In contrast, today’s elite — well-paid doctors, lawyers, consultants, investment bankers, and the like — earn money only when they show up to do the job. While knowledge is the underlying asset, time is their currency.
Earlier in their careers, people often have more stamina for onerous or even unhealthy demands on their time. But as they age, the zero-sum trade-off between work and personal relationships imposes an increasingly burdensome tax on their soul. Worse yet, the higher they ascend on the ladder, the more of their time is required. As a lawyer friend of mine summarized: “It’s a pie-eating contest. And the reward is…
