I can't quit you

Did any of us dream of being a workaholic?

AI-generated image of industrial papered brain.

When adults ask kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we don’t tell them workaholic is an option. It’s the unspoken choice for many of us, though. Perhaps we should be honest: “Being a journalist, teacher, doctor, lawyer is cool, but you know what’s even more popular? Compulsively working long hours and tying your self-worth to your career!”

Kids, learn this now: When a job forms the foundation of your identity, losing it can leave you wondering what good you are or even who you are. Consider being laid off, burning out or becoming disillusioned with your employer. This will be painful. Perhaps even more painful: Realizing what you sacrificed, or who you hurt, while being enmeshed with a job, institution or system. 

“Slave” to the system

I once asked a manager to clarify my title, responsibilities and metrics of success, which were constantly changing. My compensation, union eligibility and job security depended on them, and the ambiguity made me anxious and underpaid. She recognized the injustice, saying monkeys also objected to being rewarded differently for doing similar tasks. But instead of clarifying my work conditions, my editor suggested I “pretend to be a slave or a prisoner” and “find zen in confinement.” Think of Nelson Mandela or the slave who created stoicism, she offered. The task for me, if I didn’t want to be anxious, was to accept the dysfunction. 

The proposal was so egregious, I walked away. With less experience, I might have stayed. The truth is, versions of this happen all the time. We gaslight ourselves and rationalize violations of our conscience and health to keep the job, climb the ladder, earn the money that buys us security. We demand others do it, too. 

When work is the path to freedom, it can become a prison. 

This isn’t healthy but it is understandable. America is not a land of equal opportunity. The political, social and economic policies are designed to prioritize the dreams of certain races, classes, castes and genders over others. Some people work to keep the system rigged; others to have a fighting chance. 

It may feel like a safer bet in the short term to adopt the values of the culture harming us, but over time, shame, anxiety and depression can build. We can burn out, become sleepless, short-tempered, fearful. There are healthy ways to cope — exercise, therapy, conscientious objection — but not everyone has the time, money or safety to do that. Enter America’s numbing agents: eating, drinking, bullying, doing drugs, shopping, doom scrolling and, my drug of choice, overworking. 

Rude awakening

People in journalism are notorious for prioritizing the news over their wellbeing. We work around the clock with little support for little money, compromising our mental health and physical safety to keep the world informed. We’re self-important martyrs with a good cause: Empowering people and holding power to account. 

That’s why attacks on journalism feel so ugly and so personal. 

In just the first two months of this presidential election year, the Wall Street Journal, Vice, CBS, NBC News and others have cut around 1,000 jobs. Last year, around 3,000 were eliminated. I was one of 240 Washington Post employees who took a buyout in December to help the company, owned by the world’s third richest person, save money after it lost $100 million from a hurricane of mismanagement and changing audience, ad and tech dynamics.  

This is our climate change: corporate media killing jobs, social media killing paid subscriptions, political attacks and threats against the press, newsrooms doing more with less. Journalists are suffering the shock, anger and grief that people experience when a wildfire destroys their town and the rest of the country is too tired or numb to notice.

It might feel sudden, but the crises facing journalism, democracy and our spirits were predictable. We’ve just been so busy upholding the system built to break us that we didn’t notice when we broke.   

With loss, opportunity

So, what do we do when everything and nothing is changing? Personally, I get anxious, depressed, stuck, more anxious, angry and then I say, “Fuck it.”

I don’t mean fuck it, “burn it all down,” although one wouldn’t be faulted for feeling that way. I mean our current approach isn’t working. America is a flawed democracy with ghastly wealth inequality and mental health crises stealing the potential of our youth as well as people with serious mental illness and substance use disorders. It’s time to try something new. 

Easier said than done, I know. Not just because we have bills to pay, but because reimaging requires reprogramming. It requires radical honesty about the causes of our problems and ownership of how we contribute to them. Reimagining the system requires figuring out our values beyond work and gently reminding each other that we are human beings, not human doings. 

This will look different for different people. For me, it meant leaving The Post. There are no quick fixes to the problems we’re facing, and I couldn’t rationalize burning myself or others out to generate clicks, even for a prestigious brand. I’ve done it too many times before.

Opting out of a system, or being laid off from one, is a loss. But with loss comes opportunity. We can recreate the scarcity-driven, workaholic culture that mythologizes the American dream, or slowly build habits honoring our humanity. I know what I hope the kids will choose when they grow up. 

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Hi, I’m Kate!

I’m a journalist and filmmaker formerly with The Washington Post, where I won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with colleagues covering the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. I also pioneered a mental health column and managed a short documentary film unit. Deeply affected by the insurrection, I realized I was addicted to a job that made me sick. In 2024, I left The Post and founded Invisible Threads to embark on an ongoing exploration of the connections between the health of our minds and our body politic. With a mission to nourish individual and collective wellbeing through a more informed, compassionate public, Invisible Threads pursues its journalistic and educational goals through film, speaking, teaching and this Substack, which features new columns, expert interviews and resources on mental health and democracy every two weeks.

What’s coming to Invisible Threads…

From human doing to human being: A guide to valuing your intrinsic worth. 

Plus, I’m sitting down this week with trauma and addiction expert Gabor Maté and Bessel Van Der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. I’ll publish these interviews and more in the coming months.

What bowled me over…

• Origin, Ava DuVerney’s latest film based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Let me also recommend: Origin. Have I mentioned Origin?

What I’d invite you to explore…

• Reliable Sources’ interview with journalist Kara Swisher on the troubles facing the media and tech landscape

• Homecoming podcast on coping with burnout from Dr. Thema Bryant, psychologist, minister and the American Psychological Association’s 2023 president

• Career enmeshment test and burnout calculator from Azimuth Psych based on the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory

• Navigating burnout from the American Press Institute

• My chat with psychologist Janna Koretz for the National Press Club Journalism Institute about navigating a career change that upends one’s sense of self: