I currently have an extreme case of FOMO. One month after a big promotion and a subsequent wave of mental reassurance that I would have financial security, I found myself unemployed for the first time since early high school. Alas, about one week ago, I was laid off from my job.

This past Monday, I took the train to Chinatown, fully equipped with my grocery cart and the “freedom” to run errands during business hours. The first thing I noticed was how much emptier the subway was. This feeling lingered, following me into an almost crowd-less Hong Kong Supermarket; there was no awkward snaking around others with my cart, no trying to identify the back of the check-out line, no frustrating sighs caused by low inventory. So convenient, but just off-putting enough to send me into a downward spiral. There I was, on the ride home, sitting face-to-face with the realization that I was actually so lonely. It was FOMO, this time not for social gatherings and hangouts with the homies, but for ... work.

In Byung-Chul Han's book, The Burnout Society, he writes, “The capitalist economy absolutizes survival. It is not concerned with the good life. It is sustained by the illusion that more capital produces more life, which means a greater capacity for living. The rigid, rigorous separation between life and death casts a spell of ghostly stiffness over life itself. Concern about living the good life yields to the hysteria of surviving ... [we] are too alive to die, and too dead to live.” My FOMO for working is not rooted in some kind of overwhelming desire to participate in this mass exploitation because I enjoy it, but because it has been heavily and aggressively coded into me that working is normal when in reality, it is a means to survival. It is a FOMO for health insurance, for financial security, for avoiding the anxiety-inducing questions from my parents, for being able to pay rent, for being able to feed myself.

I haven't told too many people yet, but the first thing that most of my friends say to me, after a series of sympathies and well wishes, is that, hey, at least I can take some time to rest now. Enjoy my severance and just let myself exist for a small while, the next time an opportunity like this arises may very well be when I retire. While the very phenomenon of the-silver-lining-of-being-laid-off-is-being-able-to-rest is already quite revealing re: the consequences of capitalism, perhaps the most alarming thing is that I have no idea how to actually rest.

Bung-Chul Han talks about how we no longer live in a disciplinary society but an achievement society. While “disciplinary society is a society of negativity ... defined by the negativity of prohibition” and governed by No-You-May-Not and You-Should-Do-This we operate under extreme, toxic positivity. There is an unlimited reservoir of Yes-We-Can that highlights out the power of neoliberalism and its ability to turn everything into a #girlboss #thegrindneverstops culture. Whether it's the side of TikTok romanticizing the shit out of morning routines or the endless scroll of LinkedIn posts, it has been massively engrained into us that we can, and every second we aren't, we are missing out. FOMO, right?

Even when I'm “resting,” I'm only doing so with the intention of having more time and energy to be more productive, to be a better version of myself without first acknowledging that self-improvement and self-maintenance does not require constant labor; self-improvement can actually be to do nothing. Are you sleeping in because you are trying to compensate for your ridiculous sleep deficit? Are you treating yourself because you spend so long pushing yourself too hard? How much of your—and my—version of rest is built on giving yourself the crumbs of care to make up for the absolute wrecking ball that comes with over-consumption, over-production, over-positivity, over-Yes-If-That-Girl-Wakes-Up-At-5AM-And-Goes-On-A-Run-I-Can-Too? What I found particularly interesting in The Burnout Society is that Han does the work of delineating between tiredness of positive potency versus tiredness of negative potency, a difference that took me way too long to understand. He says that “the tiredness of exhaustion is the tiredness of positive potency. It makes one incapable of doing something. Tiredness that inspire is tiredness of negative potency, namely of “not-to”.

Not only do I not know what it means to rest, my perception of tiredness is so skewed by capitalism too; tired becomes redefined as we collectively push ourselves harder and harder, and for what? It isn't until we have hit our wall, our rock bottom, that we find ourselves in the depressive episode that sinks into our psyches like anchors. We are so tired that we literally cannot do anything. Here I am, with two months of severance (which I am so grateful for), but antsy as fuck—I can't seem to stay still, even to lay on the couch and relax is an entryway to feelings of guilt and self-depreciation. And to nap ... well, power to the homies that can't nap because they're too anxious they won't wake up in time for their next obligation and therefore never actually fall asleep. My understanding of tiredness has been so deeply ingrained in this exhaustive incompetence that I forgot there was a tiredness not tied to my production. Tiredness, at once, was a reward: a sign that I ran around and played so well with my friends that we stumble onto the couch and chug a bottle of cold water, a symbol of my diligence that pushed me into being able to finally reorganize my room the way I wanted to. Tiredness was a kind of closure that came from achieving for myself and my friends, rather than for my (now nonexistent) boss.

Even in my time off, when I'm doing my own personal projects, working on things that have been in the back burner for months too long, there is a small part of my brain that tells me to keep checking in on LinkedIn every few hours, to keep checking my email in case someone replied to me. Working burnt me out, but not working has as well. The conditions that I (we) live under pushes us to always be on the clock, even when the clock was literally ripped away from you by a company that can let you go at literally any moment.

I was 14 years old when I first starting learning about depression, about this complex thing called mental health. Scrolling through Tumblr and watching Skins (UK), while also so damaging for other reasons (God, I wanted to be Effy so badly. And Freddie? Holy shit.), were the channels that pushed me to start reckoning with the trauma and experiences I carry on my shoulders. So much of my introduction to mental health centered around this validation: being depressed doesn't mean that you're being selfish or ungrateful, it is a direct confrontation with the fact that you are coping with emotional weight. That was such a powerful concept, especially as I battled my parents and defended myself from their attacks of, “How can you be depressed? You have everything. We gave you everything!” and “Your entire generation is so weak.” 14-year-old me flooded with rage and sadness, trying to weave together the words to articulate that depression is a serious thing, that mental health should be taken seriously. But what 14-year-old me did not understand was just how interlaced mental health is with capitalism and this world that pushes us to endlessly go, go, go.

Depression is not sadness, but one small section of the ecosystem that comes with capitalism. It erupts at the moment when the “achievement-subject is no longer able to be able. First and foremost, depression is creative fatigue and exhausted ability ... the complaint of the depressive individual, 'Nothing is possible,' can only occur in a society that thinks, 'Nothing is impossible.'”

For the past week, I have been floating in a delirium that feels like a heat mirage on humid summer day. Admittedly, this is partially due to me being outside 80% of the day where it was literally 92 degrees in sticky, sweaty NYC ... but I close my eyes and barely remember what has been going on. The structure that came with the suburban-upper-middle-class childhood to college to new grad working life to young adult working life was ripped from underneath me, and the cocktail of emotions I had are still swirling in the digestive system of my brain. I find myself thinking the worst, catastrophizing because, simply, it's so easy to do. Over half of all Americans are one medical emergency away from financial ruin—suddenly, catastrophizing doesn't sound a whole lot like catastrophizing, but just like the violent circumstances of life under capitalism. But on top of all that, I am also finding myself practicing gratitude, a thankfulness for savings, for friends, for the fact that I did indeed have the structure that came with suburban-upper-middle-class childhood to college to new grad working life to young adult working life in the first place.

A few nights ago, I played Super Smash Bros. Melee with some friends. This is not to be confused with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that I've previously written about. This is, in fact, so much fucking harder (but also better!). There were 4 of us, so we played Around The World: everyone starts at one corner, and if you win, you get to advance to the next character. The goal is to win enough games that you're the first person to cycle through all the characters. It was exhausting, but coming out of it was like an all-time exercise high. Endorphins shooting out like I just ran 5 miles under a bright, breezy sky. A concentration that pushed me to remember the roots of a healthy tiredness. Timothy Gallwey's book, The Inner Game of Tennis, speak about this—”Concentration is not staring hard at something. It is not trying to concentrate; it is not thinking hard about something. Concentration is fascination of mind. When there is love present, the mind is drawn irresistibly toward the object of love. It is effortless and relaxed, not tense and purposeful.” This isn't to (just) say that I love playing Smash, but more so to say that, capitalism undeniably builds a relationship between the tiredness we experience with sinister ulterior motives. There is monetization of hobbies, which leads to a tiredness that is built on the pillars of hustling and grinding all day, everyday. Gallwey continues to write about how it is very difficult to have fun or achieve concentration “when your ego is engaged in a life-and-death struggle”. You will never be allowed to express spontaneity and excellence when there's always a part of your brain playing some heavy ulterior game involving your self-image, your (literal financial) self-worth.

I used to squeeze these healthy moments of tiredness in between my perpetual state of Tiredness that came from being a working adult. 48 hours of weekend time, of degeneracy, of time to let loose and play video games and do things that aren't staring at spreadsheets and building out automation for a beep boop company. And while I very much hope to be employed soon enough, I am taking this time to (re)build this new life for myself. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the next few weeks. I will likely still continue to neurotically check my email and LinkedIn for any kind of notification, and I will absolutely still make uncomfortable-semi-hysterical jokes about how I suddenly have a bunch of “free time”.

On top of all of that, though, I will (re)learn what it means to really rest and what it means to actually be tired—that is, (re)learn what it means to be a person wholly deserving of love, care, calm, and kindness.