Letter from Your Unconscious on Why You Feel Exhausted after every Workday

Oct 27, 2021

Letter from Your Unconscious on Why You Feel Exhausted after Every Workday

Dear You,

I am Your Unconscious.

It’s 6:43 p.m.

Your work schedule is technically 8 to 5. But you usually start at 9 and aim to finish by 6. Most days you close the laptop around 7 p.m.

Today you received 57 e-mails.

You send 46 e-mails.

You were in 4 calls.

There were 15 tasks on your to-do list. You started three of them. Abandoned two. Sort of finished one, but it was the least important.

Because you also dealt with 8 unexpected tasks. Most of them were minor.

Now as you close the workday you feel exhausted and yet at the same time that you have not accomplish anything of importance.

It’s like you ran a mental hamster-wheel all day long. You achieved nothing. But you are pooped.

What do you do? You are discontent but too tired to do something of value.

You don’t feel like learning or working on your side hustle. You reach instead for the easy instant gratification. Gaming. Eating. Social media. Mindless browsing. Going out.

Why do you get so tired from meaningless busy work?

I don’t want to do the work

Because you’re fighting me all day long, that’s why.

Do you think I want to work at your stupid job? I don’t like or understand Excel, Powerpoint, revenue, customer value, retention metrics, KPIs, or any of the other blah blah jargon in your corporate job.

Your job is unpleasant, boring and meaningless to me. I don’t care about the quarterly results. I don’t care about your to-do list. I don’t care about some fictional results about a fictional entity (your company).

Yet you insist of this stupid work instead of doing stuff that matters. I want to eat, get exciting information, get social validation, lie around, feel instant gratification. You force to work instead. I don’t like it. So I fight back.

You win most of the time. I mean some of the time. In reality I get my way every 4 minutes out of ten. That’s what you call procrastination. I call pursuing our evolutionary fitness. But you do force me to work.

After 7–8 hours of this, of course you are tired. You cannot force me to do another difficult thing, like learning or doing a complex activity. I get to hit my dopamine highs and feel like I am improving our evolutionary fitness.

Rule №9 Crave status and belonging

Your job stresses me out.

When it’s not boring, it’s anxiety provoking.

All those calls, with all those people. I need to get validation from all of them. But it’s so hard. I cannot read their body language in Zoom. Do they like me? Do they hate me? It kills me not to know.

And the emails. Oh, God, the emails!

Why did you not invent written symbols for emotions? How the heck can I know what your boss says when he writes your presentation was ‘interesting.’? Is that ‘interesting — great I validate you and you have high status’? Or is it ‘interesting — I want to fire you and exile you, and you will die a miserable death alone in the wilderness’?

Not to mention all the complicated social dynamics. I mean, look, I evolved to handle a community of up to 150 people, ok? People who saw each other physically every day.

Now you want me to understand the relationships and status you have with all these strangers and half-strangers, using the meager information from email, text and bad Zoom video?

How can I solve the anxiety of wanting to please other people and the status-defense of trying to not do someone else’s job? Uff. Better go and scroll Facebook. That will make me feel better.

What can you do about it?

Stop tiring me, and you, with this job.

Get an occupation that I enjoy. Or at least hate less.

I will give you some tips:

Meaning. I am not going to put in the effort for nothing. Do something that I think is pleasant, and/ or is challenging and creative, and/ or helps other people. I’m selfish, but empathy makes me feel good when I help people.
Less corporate politics and status fighting. It’s really tiring me out. Either find a good group of people to work with, or do something alone, or be the big boss so I don’t have to worry about status.
Don’t give me so many temptations. If you have the instant gratification box (the smartphone) within reach, of course I will choose it over whatever difficult thing you are doing.

With selfish love,
Your Unconscious

How to Build the Ideal Life

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