“Is burnout supposed to last this long?”: Brutally honest rant captures how endless self-improvement still leaves us empty

A TikToker’s video laying out the seemingly inescapable feeling of burnout that’s permeating everything these days is turning out to be too relatable.

“We’re all exhausted, right? And we’re just pretending that we’re not?” Bella Rose (@onlyjayus) began in a video that’s been viewed nearly 250,000 times. 

For over two and a half minutes, she laid out a number of issues that seem to encompass modern life—taking steps to improve sleep and mental health but never feeling better, going on TikTok and having memes and videos of people dying one right after the other, using tools to increase productivity but only feeling like you’re left with less time than ever.

“I work from home, which means I live at work. And my therapy is on Zoom. And my friends are on Discord. And my girlfriend is only on FaceTime,” she explained.

“They call this burnout, but is burnout supposed to last this long? It’s been a long time.”

“I’ve never been more entertained, and at the same time, I’ve never been more bored. We have endless options and somehow, I still feel trapped. And I keep asking myself, is this it? It’s just exhaustion, and self-improvement, and scrolling with nothing to show for it?”

“And everybody keeps saying, Oh, it’ll get better, it’ll get better,” she added. “This doesn’t feel like it’s a temporary thing. This doesn’t feel like it’s…fixable. This just feels like it’s my life now.”

@onlyjayus what if this isn’t burnout, and it’s just reality? #burnoutculture #exhaustedgeneration #mentalhealthcheck #grnz #realitycheck ♬ original sound – Bella Rose

Everyone is burned out

A study highlighted in Forbes earlier this year said that job-related burnout is at an all-time high, with 66% of American workers self-reporting experiencing it lately. Financial stress, being asked to do more work than they have the time or tools to complete, and fears of being replaced by AI seem to all be contributing to these issues.

But as Bella’s TikTok suggests, there’s so much more to the stress and anxiety people are feeling these days. Another 2024 study suggested that constant connectivity in a digital world makes it difficult for people to “switch off” from work. The same year, a different study reported 27% of Americans were bored with their lives.

There are countless Reddit threads and TikToks and articles featuring people searching for ways to stop feeling so overwhelmed by the constant connection and mindlessness of the modern age.

And everything happening in the U.S. politically and socially isn’t helping anything. Necessary programs are getting cut, the constant uncertainty of tariffs is harming small businesses, immigrants are getting swept up off the streets and put into camps, LGBTQ+ rights are under fire, and the Trump administration is paving the way to classify protesting anything they do as “terrorism.”

Basically, it’s no wonder people are feeling burned out and overwhelmed, and like there’s no end to feeling this way. 

Commenters say they feel “trapped” in the same reality

Bella’s video clearly hit home for a lot of people, as the comments reflected the same anxieties, exhaustion, and difficulty knowing what to do with these feelings as she expressed in her TikTok.

“It’s not just you, it’s the broken system that we’re being forced to participate in,” @rirreeeee wrote.

“Life feels like a black mirror episode to me lately,” said @samanthawilson707, while @brandon_bonebrake suggested that the “hardest part of it all is the people pretending nothing is wrong.”

Other commenters chimed in that everything feels “pointless” and that even things they used to enjoy now feel like a chore.

“I’ve realized this week that my body and mind are rejecting this way of life. like full freeze mode,” @strongestselfcoaching added.

A few commenters tried to make sense of it all, suggesting the pandemic as a starting point for when things changed, or wondering how much of it has to do with a certain amount of isolation forced on people in a digital world where so much time is spent working. 

“It feels like we’re all in limbo,” wrote @lil_fujimama. “Like the old world is gone but whatever ‘comes next’ isn’t here yet. I’m the most healed I’ve been and yet the world is insane and I’m constantly holding my breath waiting for the next awful thing to happen. An age of disharmony and uncertainty. Life can’t go on but it’s also not over. So I exist.”

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