Overwork and burnout; it might not come as too much of a surprise to hear that millions of us tend to overwork. What might surprise you is just how long this rather worrying trend has been going on. The systemic idea of overwork being something to be proud of stems from way back in the 16th century.
Known as the Protestant work ethic, it was a worldview that “made hard work and the quest for profit seem virtuous”. In a way, this is what drove the industrial revolution to happen as relatively quickly as it did. But this rose-tinted view of hard work at any cost could result in very negative, long-term effects.
