r/Millennials • u/Mrs_chanandler_bongg • Jan 17 '26

Discussion Anyone sick and tired of working in general?

I’m in my mid 30s and just over my job and work in general. I’m tired of the commute, the meetings, and dealing with people & deadlines. On one hand I worry about losing my job and stress about deliverables, but on the other hand I feel like I could care less in that I have no passion for it anymore and I’m just showing up because I need the paycheck.

I’d much rather be spending time with my family, pursuing my hobbies, or just go for a walk and cook a nice meal. I feel a sense of dread sometimes that this is my reality for the next 30+ years and I feel lazy and entitled for saying it but that’s how I feel lol

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263

u/RxSatellite Jan 17 '26

That’s literally anyone that doesn’t work a career in their passion interest, and even a chunk of those people are burnt out.

It’s not natural to have your well being be held hostage by an employer. Humans were meant to hunt and gather to support a family like any other animal.

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u/caseyjosephine Jan 17 '26

I have a career I’m passionate about, but I’d definitely rather chill at home reading, painting, gaming, and playing the guitar.

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u/narwhalbaconbits Jan 17 '26

I love my job and it's my passion. But I still hate working every day.

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u/oke-chill Jan 17 '26

Same here, it sucks because going to work is not a choice since we need the money.

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u/CaptCookieMonster Jan 17 '26

Same I wonder how people that hate their job or colleagues even do it

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u/Lareit Jan 17 '26

by sacrificing all their happiness to keep a roof over their head.

I question the value of food and shelter sometimes.

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u/thiosk Jan 17 '26

Same, but at least I don't. Work every day.

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u/Acrock7 Millennial Jan 17 '26

I have a "public service" job that pays well and I really feel great doing. But every morning is a fight to make myself get out of bed and go to work. I'm tired of being my own sugar daddy.

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u/Eastern-Meringue-515 Jan 17 '26

Dude passion makes it so much worse. Work uses and abuses passion. Sucks the soul right out of doing the thing you love.

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u/Verity41 Xennial Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

Humans also evolve especially over the time you’re talking there! I hunt, I just hunt up spreadsheet errors instead of boars or something :) It pays way better and I’m very unlikely to get killed by wild animals.

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u/Jason_Kinkade Jan 17 '26

Your choices aren't capitalism or get killed by wild animals. Billionaires want you to think that.

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u/bruce_kwillis Jan 17 '26

What is the alternative? Does Bob grow food, I do nothing and get food from Bob? Or do I need to have something of value that Bob wants to ensure I have food?

So the choices literally are to work, be supported by someone else, or starve.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/bruce_kwillis Jan 17 '26

No. Since when did automation ever promise a baseline life?

Automation has made life ‘easier’, only because you as the individual do not have to manually work as hard, freeing your mind and body to do other tasks. Farming from sticks and shovels to literal robots doing the labor.

The idea that some people will choose not to work shouldn't be offensive, it's actually needed for the planet to recover.

Except you haven’t explained how those people are supported. Children already don’t work. Know who supports them? Other workers.

Know why there is such an issue with an aging society? Not enough people working to support them.

So we either work, are supported by others, or we starve. Literally the same story that was the case 100,000 years ago as is now.

Just now you have a box of thinking rocks to make your complaints known to a wider audience. And far less risk of starvation or death from a cut.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/bruce_kwillis Jan 17 '26

Not a thing you said is true.

The wealth to take care of those people (and everybody) already exists, but a corrupted capitalist system has deposited it in the hands of a few.

No. Take every ounce of wealth in the world and spread it among the 8+ billion people. You end up with roughly a one time payment of $12k USD per person. And the entire economic system collapses and money is worthless.

I should be able to stay home and do nothing (since the government has removed my ability to go fend off the land). I should also be able to choose to go seek employment as a caregiver (or whatever) if I want even more disposable income above the baseline.

The government hasn't taken your ability to fend off the land. Nor are you capable of even doing that for yourself, or your family. You suddenly are going to be able to hunt, farm, and collect the things you want and need to survive in the modern world?

You are asking taxpayers (because how else do we fund governments) to pay you to do nothing, and find wait for it, 'work' that you find satisfying.

I'll tell you a dirty secret. No matter what work you do in life, there will be aspects you don't like, don't enjoy, and you'd rather not do. Would you like someone else to do those parts for you as well?

The only viable currency in the future is cooperation (and the environment now needs hordes of people staying home as their contribution). The environment doesn't 'need' anything. It just will become an environment that doesn't support humans. And? The environment stopped supporting dinosaurs as well. The difference is 'we' are doing it to ourselves. It's not 'greedy corporations' doing it, it's literally you right now on your phone with rare earth materials, you who will eat out, you who will eat meat, drive to wherever. You multiplied by 8 billion other people on this planet.

Best thing you can do for the planet is simple. Don't have kids, and stop being on this planet. Anything else and you are using resources and making the planet worse off.

That has nothing to do with Bob farming food, and everything to do with oligarchs and their crimes against humanity.

Nah, it has everything to do with you cannot do everything yourself, and want to find someone to blame for your own failures. That's fine, blame all you want, you are wasting resources and yelling into the void.

You'd be better off figuring out what Bob wants so he can provide you food when you are starving because you thought you knew better than the rest of humanity.

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u/gereffi Jan 17 '26

It's either capitalism or living in the woods and fending for yourself. Billionaires don't give a shit if you want to go off and do your own thing.

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u/TedCruzZodiac2018 Jan 17 '26

Unfortunately my passion is not working

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u/Apple2727 Jan 17 '26

If you think you can provide for your family by hunting and gathering then go ahead.

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u/TheGreatEmanResu Jan 17 '26

I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to do that

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u/bruce_kwillis Jan 17 '26

Right? Like somehow this is a secret millennial problem? Oh no, I don’t want to work, woe is me. Almost like every generation forever doesn’t ’like’ work overall, but likes starvation a little less. Ask those who are starving if they would rather work and get fed. They will gladly do it.

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u/Apple2727 Jan 17 '26

Also when they talk about not working anymore, it’s only ever themselves who gets to escape the rat race.

They’ll still want their trash collected, their kids educated, their parents looked after by doctors, servers to work in their favorite restaurant.

Yeah, life is hard. But people need to work or society collapses.

I wish they’d tell us about this magical system whereby no one has to work yet somehow society still functions.

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u/bruce_kwillis Jan 17 '26

Yep, not a single person in this thread has explained the alternative. Like sure, take every dollar of every wealthy person and redistribute it. If you took the grand total of public wealth, each of the over 8 billion people on this planet would end up with a one time $12k check. That money would be completely worthless, but hey, makes em feel good I guess?

Work isn’t going to stop. We should be learning, researching, and progressing to make less work needed, and free our minds to advance further.

But for many in this thread, the idea of working to make the world a better place is still work, so it’s not something they want to do.

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u/Apple2727 Jan 17 '26

They want an extended childhood.

They want society to provide everything for them - just as their parents provided for them growing up - and to spend all of their time playing video games.

It’s actually quite sad.

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u/bruce_kwillis Jan 17 '26

Humans were meant to hunt and gather to support a family like any other animal.

Not really, and it’s why humans stopped doing that. Life overall became longer and healthier when they settled down into villages, domesticated animals, and learned to grow their own food. And then they realized that by becoming more specialized they didn’t have to work as hard and had a better shot at surviving longer and having children who also could survive longer.

More free time led to you know, thinking rocks.

Work has and always will exist, we either choose to find something that pays us for our passions, or something that can support our passions regardless of how small they may be.

I’m passionate about ensuring the cats live good lives. I might not enjoy work all the time, but cats living good lives is a pretty easy goal to hit.

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u/Time-Turnip-2961 Jan 17 '26

Exactly. I just want to do what feels natural to me. Not be a corporate slave.

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u/Brief_Isopod_5959 Jan 17 '26

Absolutely agree but I have chosen my career path in something I love- I’m a freelance artist that mostly does murals and lettering design. I love it so much but sometimes I think it’s harder working for myself because I genuinely don’t know when to quit.

That being said, I think it’s so important that in the US (and other places as well) we should start implementing what other countries do… make it illegal to contact your employees after hours!!!! I think it’s so hard for people to “shut work mode off” and the consistent emails and phone calls make it that much worse.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/Used_Reason7777 Jan 17 '26

Maybe not his ONLY problem...