 I found a story that really demonstrates how detrimental capitalism is to our well-being. It's literally now a medical issue, a medical diagnosis according to the World Health Organization to experience burnout, burnout specifically with your job. We're being overworked and underpaid and it's affecting our health physically and mentally. So for more on this we go to Jenna Amatouli of the HuffPosts who writes, The stress, depression and lack of feeling and control that comes with burnout are finally being formally recognized by the medical community. Burnout is now an official workplace syndrome. The international classification of diseases or the ICD-11, the World Health Organization's handbook that helps medical providers diagnose diseases, classifies burnout as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Symptoms include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job or feelings of negativity or cynicism related to one's job and reduced professional efficacy. The ICD-11 notes that burnout is a specific occupation and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life. Research on burnout dates back to a 1974 study on the state of burnout by psychologist Herbert Frudenberger according to CNN. Since then while burnout has been widely discussed as a problem in society it hasn't been taken seriously or viewed as a legitimate medical condition. Most recently burnout has been closely associated with the millennial generation. In January Anne Helen Peterson penned a viral BuzzFeed article titled How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. So as I read this I kept thinking it doesn't have to be this way. It does not have to be this way. But it is specifically because we designed an economic system, capitalism, where we essentially become slaves to the system and our survivability hinges on us participating in capitalism. And having burnout, like experiencing that, it makes sense especially for millennials. I mean everyone can experience burnout right? But think about millennials and why this especially affects them. We are working longer hours for lower wages, we're worse off than our parents and we are really facing the reality that we may not ever be able to retire. Maybe if you're working at some shitty job that you hate, you may have to work until the day you die because we may not be able to retire. There are efforts to privatize social security which would essentially ruin it, pensions have essentially been abandoned in favor of 401ks that don't pay out as much. I mean the prospect of enjoying life and not just living to work and serve capitalism, it's diminishing. So of course people are experiencing burnout, of course. There's also no federal guarantee for vacations, no sick leave. So if you're sick, well you need money so you gotta come into work. If you have a baby, there's no mandatory maternity and paternity leave. And additionally to make matters worse, we're not even really benefiting from the fruits of our labor. You work five days out of the week in many instances and you don't even get to spend the money that you get. It goes to student loans, it goes to rent, it goes to bills. So if you worked but there was this light at the end of the tunnel where you can go and purchase anything that makes you happy, you know some consumerist thing, if you can participate in capitalism and buy an Xbox for example, maybe that make matters a little bit better but it's like you're working just to get by, it's a grind and it doesn't have to be this way. And I think it's really unnecessarily cruel. Think about just stop for a minute and think about how crazy this is. We have as human beings very short lives. If we're lucky we live to be 80 years old, right? But we spend most of that time working. Five out of the seven days each week is spent going to a job that we hate, doing something we don't like and not getting paid enough. It's such a just a really a grim thing to think about when you really kind of dwell on this and think about what capitalism has done. We are slaves to capitalism and we have no choice. If we don't participate then we can't survive. And to be fair it's not just millennials because I worked at Walmart and I absolutely hated life. Like I felt strong depression but I remember thinking you know there were these 80 or 70 year old coworkers, old ladies that I worked with and I just thought why are you here? These are supposed to be your golden years. You should be retired by now. You shouldn't have to be dealing with these asshole customers who treat you like a servant to them. You shouldn't be having to fucking pick up all the toys that the kids throw on the floor in the toy section. You should be enjoying the golden years of your life. And then when you think about that and think man this is going to be what it's like for millennials we have to do this possible. We have to work until we're that old because we won't have enough money to retire. It's so sad. It's such a devastating thought. So this is why the more that I think about this, the more that I explore my own political ideology, I'm gravitating away from social democracy and closer towards democratic socialism because capitalism is such a virus that even if you get social democracy, capitalistic forces will try to destroy the progress that you made because that incentive to generate profit is so powerful. But it is antithetical to what human beings need to live fulfilling lives. I mean you shouldn't have to get up every single day or most days and work at a job you hate. We should be able to pursue things that we feel passionate about. Art, if you want to paint pictures, you want to play video games. We should be able to enjoy lives more. But the fact that most of the time, most of our waking hours, most days were forced to do something we don't like just to survive. That's really sad. We could do better. We can design an economic system that isn't like this. It's not like we're all going to be lucky enough to land jobs that we love. But we shouldn't be spending the majority of our days at these jobs that we hate because even if you have a job you love, you're bound to hate it if you're forced to spend all your time there. So this is why I read stories like this and I move a little bit closer towards democratic socialism because I think we can do better. We can give human beings more to make their lives more fulfilling. We can give them more security when it comes to just getting them the basic necessities so that way they don't have to feel as if they are slaves to the state and slaves to capitalism and big business. So that way they can actually, I don't know, try something crazy and maybe enjoy life, travel, explore the planet, run, play with dogs. That's lovely. Just do something that you enjoy because life is too short to spend most of the time doing something you don't like. I mean, how cruel is that? Capitalism only benefits the rich. It only benefits the people who are exploiting us for our labor. So I don't know what else to say about this. It's not surprising, but it's sad because it really puts things into perspective to see that it's now officially a medical diagnosis that people are getting burned out with their jobs. Yeah.