Q&A: Anne Helen Petersen on her new book on burnout
Plus, an essential RBG reading list
It’s another Q&A edition! This week I talked to Anne Helen Petersen, a former Buzzfeed News writer who recently left to write her newsletter, Culture Study, full-time. You’ve probably read Anne’s work: last year she wrote a viral article called How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, and it was so popular it eventually led Anne to write a book on the topic. I’ve been following Anne’s work at BuzzFeed for years, and her newsletter has long been one of my favorites — she is always sharing thoughtful ideas and curating interesting links and perspectives you don’t find everywhere else.
Her book, “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation,” comes out this Tuesday, so I asked Anne a few questions about her book, burnout, social media, how the pandemic has affected millennials, and more.
Additionally, after the Q&A, I curated a list of the very best pieces to read about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her legacy. Like everyone, I’m incredibly sad about the death of RBG, who was an icon and inspiration to so many, including me, so I wanted to share some of the stories that I appreciated reading after her passing.
Q&A with Anne Helen Petersen on millennial burnout
NC: What was your experience with burnout that led you to write this book and the article first, and how did you realize that what you were experiencing was in fact burnout?
AHP: I think I just felt no relief or catharsis at the end of really big projects. My experience is somewhat unique. As a reporter you feel like, okay, I'm going to do this really, really hard thing. For me, it was getting through the midterm elections, but then nothing got better afterwards. I worked so hard in the lead up to the election and then was really expecting to be able to take a big deep breath. Instead it just amped up. I was doing the work that I needed to do, and I was proud of it. But at the same time, I didn't ever feel any sort of catharsis or relief or even pride. When editors would give me feedback on a draft and it was really critical that I would just be so mad and I'm usually pretty even keeled with others. When my editor told me that she thought I was burnt out and needed to take some time, I was like, I took two days! Of course I'm not burnt out. To me, burning out was a failure. I started to research what I thought was the problem, which was my errand paralysis. As I read more about it, I was like, Oh yeah, of course I'm burnt out. I just didn't recognize it as such.
The concept of “errand paralysis” that you first explored with the initial article really hit home with me. I have so many tasks in my to-do app that just roll over from day to day, like repotting a plant that's been sitting on my list for six weeks. How did you come up with that concept?
There were these things that were easy things. Repotting a plant that would take you 20 minutes, but they required extra things. In the case of repotting a plant, you're like, do I have the new pot that I wanted to go in? Do I have extra potting soil? That requires going to get more items. It's actually like five tasks sitting in one task. Then the other thing too, is that a lot of these tasks that roll over are so labyrinthian and often purposely. The one that always sticks out for me is rebates for contacts. You have to send in the prescription and cut out these UPC labels and get this special envelope and print out this thing. I don't have a printer! I can't find my original receipt! I have to call my doctor in order to get the thing. And what you end up doing is just eating that $60.
I think these tasks roll over in that way because they are not necessarily essential for us to keep living, but then they also interfere with what has become our primary task, for many millennials, which is working all the time. It just feels too insurmountable. Too many tasks rolled up into one that would ultimately take too much time away from that primary thing.
Another thing that really resonated for me is this idea of “do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life,” and the idea that you have to have a job that you're passionate about, that feels cool and that sort of defines your identity. How did that message come to dominate how millennials especially think about work and jobs and careers?
A lot of it comes from this idea of a calling or vocation which usually is associated with clergy in some capacity. But that I think has spread over into jobs like journalism, artists, teachers, social workers. You feel like this is a job that you feel passionate about in some capacity and for whatever reason in our society, we elevated those jobs in some way; even if we don't necessarily pay them as well, they become venerable jobs. There's part of that chapter where I go into how different companies are trying to take jobs that are distinctly uncool, like being a call center representative, and then they add words, like Call “Ninja,” all of these ridiculous words, in order to try to make mundane jobs feel like jobs that people are willing to do for less money because it is a job that they're passionate about or part of a larger family. It’s all that rhetoric that we use to try to convince people that they shouldn't treat it as just a job where they can advocate for themselves and ask for things like equal pay.
You wrote most of this book before the pandemic hit. How do you see the pandemic and the economic collapse affecting the burnout and pressures that millennials are already feeling?
I think millennials in particular are becoming conditioned to instability in a way that is going to have long lasting effects. It has already put millennials in this place of feeling like the other shoe is always about to drop. No matter how "healthy" the economy is, everything could go to shit in a second. There is no safety net and you have to figure things out for yourself. Either you can respond to that situation by deciding that we need to have solutions that reknit that safety net so that everyone can have those protections, or you do the opposite, which is you really turn inward and look for solutions where as long as you are protected, then that's all that matters.
Earlier this year there was a discourse about productivity during the pandemic — should people be using their time in quarantine to learn a language or acquire a new hobby or write their book proposal or whatever. What’s your take on that debate?
I think there's a real difference between doing things either to profit off of it, or to try to optimize yourself as a person and then just doing things to do them. We've been in the pandemic long enough that those bursts of what we call “productivity” have given way to people just kind of gravitating towards things that they figured out actually give them release or pleasure or space or peace in some way. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in the newsletter — I was so excited about my garden, and I put so much energy into it, but I really had this revelation over the course of the summer that it doesn't matter if the end product is as beautiful as I wished it was, or if it's yielding as many vegetables as I wish it was. It's so much more that I was able to really take a deep breath in the space of this thing. It's really that I cultivated an actual hobby.
How does social media play a role in burnout, particularly for millennials?
I think social media becomes like an empty calorie choice that robs us of our ability to choose the choices that we want to do. Because it's just so easy to scroll through Twitter or scroll through Instagram, we end up doing that instead of doing the very slightly harder, but infinitely more rewarding task of whatever our hobby is or being present with our kids or with our partner or just taking a walk, hanging out with your own mind. It's just so easy to give into it. Then there's the aspect of performing the self constantly that I think is incredibly exhausting. It becomes a way that we are trying to reassure ourselves of who we are. It becomes kind of this double self and we’re maintaining the image of that self for public consumption. You're essentially trying to maintain this broadcast of a life that is balanced, that is nuanced, that is weird and eclectic, but also normal and steady in which you are busy all the time. That is an incredibly difficult task, and yet we fill our free time doing that.
You seem to have a really healthy relationship to social media. How do you manage your own social media usage to make it feel healthy and beneficial?
I don't have very good boundaries with social media! I deleted the Twitter app off my phone and I still just browse to it on Google Chrome. I subconsciously give myself permission to not be on Twitter. To spend whole days where I don't log on. I deleted Facebook off my phone because I just felt like I didn't actually need that on my phone, that would be another thing that I would compulsively check. Most of the people that I follow are people that I actually know. I think following people that you know is really useful, right? I spend less time being mad about things and more time being like, I want to be a part of my friend's kid's life, stuff like that.
I find that like most people when I am burnt out and stressed out and overworked and don't feel like there's enough hours in the day, somehow I still make time for social media. It is a reflex. Times when I feel more at peace and more rooted, somehow I don't have as much time for social media and don't feel that need. I think it's an easy way for me to actually kind of keep tabs on my levels of burnout is how much I am engaging in social media.
You were in New York before when you worked at Buzzfeed, and then you moved out to Montana. What has that experience been like for you, reporting for national platforms and to a national audience from Montana?
For me, it feels really natural because I grew up in Idaho. The place I chose to move to in Montana is like the cool version of where I grew up. I think I was more burnt out when I was in New York because the amount of time that you spend in the physical office and the amount of time you spend commuting just expands to your entire day. I don't know what I did with my days. I had nothing ever in my fridge, barely ever cooked. Part of that was so difficult to go to the freaking grocery store, let alone plan ahead for a meal. There was very little space in my life for anything other than trying to survive through the week.
I loved living in New York in so many ways. It is an addictive city, the energy rubs off on you, but it also takes a lot of that energy. My partner and I have spent the last three years figuring out how to reorient ourselves to take advantage of some of the space and time that we've recovered. And I think everyone who's working from home is struggling with this right now where, Oh, I'm not spending two hours of my life commuting. The solution to that is not to spend two more hours working. We are always working on how we can work less, because working less is great in general, and it also makes the time when you are working better. We try to think about doing less work but better work.
What is something you're doing to stay sane during the pandemic?
I’ve been spending a lot of time in my garden and just giving myself a lot of permission. That doesn't mean permission to be unsafe in any capacity, but giving myself permission to be tired, to take a nap, to not do that thing that you feel like you should do, because there are so many things pressing down on us and our bodies are telling us how they need to recover every day. I’m just trying to be better at listening when my body or my mind is like, nope, we're done with that.
Subscribe to Anne Helen Petersen’s newsletter here and learn more about her book CAN’T EVEN here. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Essential RBG Reading List
Here’s a reading list of the best, most essential pieces to read about RBG this week.
The Glorious RBG, The Cut. A beautiful, moving obituary by Irin Carmon, who co-wrote The Notorious RBG.
A 5-decade long friendship that began with a phone call, NPR. A truly lovely collection of stories about RBG over the years from NPR’s Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg, who interviewed her countless times over five decades and became close friends.
It Shouldn’t Have Come Down to Her, The Cut. Rebecca Traister on how we shouldn’t have gotten to a place where the fate of our democracy rested on the shoulders of one 87-year-old woman.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s advice for living, New York Times. A 2016 essay by RBG herself on her wisest advice to others.
The remarkable devotion of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband, Washington Post. This 2018 piece looks back and RBG and her husband Marty Ginsburg’s incredible marriage — he was her biggest booster, a feminist at a time when few men were, who supported RBG’s career and even campaigned for her Supreme Court nomination.
What else I’m reading
Be on time for things, Defector.
Now is the time to bring back away messages, OneZero/Medium.
Buying myself back, The Cut. An incredibly powerful essay from Emily Ratajkowski on trying to take ownership of images of herself.
Why everything is sold out right now, The Atlantic. How the pandemic broke online shopping.
Warning working moms: your partner is your glass ceiling, Glamour. A look at a new book from Caitlin Moran on how male partners are often the biggest obstacle to women’s ambition, particularly for mothers.
Our group texts are blowing up during the pandemic, and we’re taking the drama personally, Washington Post.
What I’m cooking
This week I made slow cooker sweet and sour chicken, sweet chili shrimp tacos, and this spicy, saucy cherry tomato pasta (make it while those summer cherry tomatoes are still in season!)
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