Alternate phrasing: If you don't have the financial ability to stop working, you can't quit your job. Your sanity is not worth it.
> I needed to completely remove any feelings of pressure, or any external, and internal, obligations. “You decide what to watch on Netflix because I literally can’t.” I’ve eaten more takeout in the last few months, than the whole pandemic; I didn’t have the energy to shop for groceries, or cook. I desperately needed to enjoy things again - so I could remember what that was like - so I could get back to enjoying ‘productive’ things too. Remember that producing recovery, relaxation, or joy for yourself is still being productive.
There are loads of people that don't even bother with cooking or groceries or enjoying things or having a sense of productivity. A lot of us are busy doing the capitalism because capital is the only sensible way to escape labor and any disruption would be very costly.
What the author considers "burned out", most would consider just another day. It only becomes "burnout" when you're wealthy enough to consider converting your labor time into self-care time for some months.
Also, taking time off is probably not even good advice. If you've always been miserable with the employed lifestyle, you're probably going to be just as miserable when you are forced back to it. Maybe more so.
Plus you lose out on those months of earnings, which is not good because 4 months of pay now is way better than 4 months of pay in the future. Assuming, that the goal is to eventually not be forced to sell your time for money.
> My boyfriend told me to stop working. It wasn’t work, and it was great. I was learning something. Completing something. Doing something because I wanted to do it, not because it was the next urgent thing that needed to happen. It felt like work used to feel like. That’s what I’m looking forward to again.
I have no idea how someone whose career path is McKinsey->Google->GitHub could possibly have a great work experience where they're learning and building and following their personal interests because they wanted to do it and not because it was the next urgent thing to build.
Maybe I just really suck at working in tech, or PM jobs are way easier than engineering jobs, but everything feels very urgent for my employer while actually being a giant waste of time for me personally. I do it because of the compensation, which I invest, so eventually I won't have to do it anymore.