In many glass towers and co‑working lofts, a strange ritual has taken root.
Exhaustion has become evidence. Staying online till 2 AM, replying to messages from airport lounges, posting “grind never stops” updates at 4 AM. These are no longer red flags, but currency for belonging and proof of worth in the new economy.
In this world, a young professional’s day starts before sunrise and ends long after the city has gone to sleep. Breakfast is coffee at the desk, lunch is either a few bites over a call, dinner is whatever arrives in a paper box between meetings. Weekdays and weekends blur into one seamless calendar. Gym memberships auto‑renew while the shoes gather dust. Hobbies become nostalgic stories from college.
No one explicitly orders this sacrifice, yet everyone seems to participate. Managers praise “ownership,” founders celebrate “hustle,” peers quietly compete over who sleeps the least, travels the most, and answers emails the fastest. Late nights stop being an occasional response to a crisis and become a permanent stage where suffering is performed as loyalty.
In one metro city, a mid‑level professional in a fast‑growing firm has not seen a sunset outdoors in months. Mornings dissolve into client calls, evenings into status meetings, nights into “just one more deck” while the glow of multiple screens paints the walls of a rented apartment. And for many, the only hobby is to get drunk after overwork.
When family calls to ask about health, the answer is always the same: “It’s just a phase.” The phase has lasted three years.
In another city, a young analyst spends more time in taxis and airport terminals than at home. Step counts come not from walks in a park, but from sprinting through corridors to make connecting flights, laptop open even at boarding gates. Social media shows hotel lobbies, business lounges, and late‑night office selfies, accompanied by captions about “grind mode.” Strangely, these draw admiration and envy.
Behind these glamorous fragments lie quieter stories. Panic attacks hidden as “network issues,” energy drinks replacing sleep, and doctors quietly warning that bodies are aging faster than their years. Several recent reports describe professionals collapsing in offices or dying suddenly in their 30s and 40s, with colleagues whispering about “stress” only after the funeral.
Older generations knew scarcity, but they also knew movement. Walking long distances, physically demanding work, and evenings spent in courtyards, community spaces, or simple outdoor routines. Today’s workforce faces a different kind of hardship. One measured not in distance walked, but in hours sat. Work happens hunched over laptops, commutes mean being wedged into cabs and metros, and leisure is often just more screen time in a smaller format.
The consequences are already visible. Indian studies now describe widespread burnout, chronic fatigue, and rising dependence on stimulants among urban professionals. Surveys indicate that a majority report poor work‑life balance, while many admit they are only truly productive for a fraction of their official working hours despite staying logged in far longer. At the same time, lifestyle‑related illnesses like metabolic disorders, sleep problems, mental health conditions are increasingly appearing earlier in life.
For younger generations watching all this, the message is confusing. On one hand, they are told to pursue balance, creativity, and purpose. On the other, the people held up as success stories are those who seem endlessly available, endlessly traveling, and endlessly tired. Many students enter the job market already bracing for burnout as an entry fee, while a growing number of educated youth remain unemployed or underemployed, wondering how a world can be simultaneously exhausted and out of work.
The paradox is stark. A section of the population is stretched to breaking point, while another, especially among educated youth, struggles to find meaningful employment at all. Reports highlight how unemployment rates among graduates and postgraduates remain significantly higher than among those with minimal schooling, exposing a mismatch between skills produced and jobs available. Automation and technology have quietly eroded many entry‑level roles, even as surviving jobs demand longer hours and broader responsibilities from a smaller pool of workers.
This imbalance is not merely an economic problem. It is a governance issue. When organizations celebrate overwork instead of effectiveness, they normalize structural understaffing and unrealistic expectations. When boards overlook mental health, rest, and humane workloads, they accept hidden liabilities that eventually surface as medical crises, reputational damage, and financial loss.
Studies have already quantified staggering annual costs to businesses from burnout‑related absenteeism, presenteeism, and attrition, running into tens of thousands of crores.
Responsible corporate governance cannot treat this as a private matter between manager and employee. It demands explicit policies on working hours, boundaries around after‑hours communication, realistic staffing and timelines, and measurable accountability for well‑being outcomes. It also calls for rethinking success metrics. Rewarding sustainable performance and team health, not just short‑term revenue spikes purchased with long‑term damage.
An entire generation now stands at a crossroads. If current trends continue, today’s “high performers” may enter their 40s and 50s with impressive titles and incomes, but also with fragile hearts, compromised immunity, and relationships held together by unread messages and missed calls. Younger people watching them may internalize a bitter lesson that adulthood means either being unemployed and anxious, or employed and exhausted.
Yet another inheritance is possible. Imagine a workplace where leaving on time is not a confession of weakness, but a sign of competence. Where leaders model sleep, exercise, and family time as fiercely as they model ambition. Imagine a culture where hiring a few more people is considered wiser than burning out the ones already there, and where technology is used to shorten workdays, not lengthen them.
The corrections required are urgent but not mysterious. Distribute work more fairly instead of glorifying overwork, design roles with human limits in mind, expand opportunities for the young rather than stretching the same few people thinner, and build policies that protect time for rest, movement, and relationships. Above all, stop treating visible suffering as proof of invisible merit.
Somewhere tonight, another young professional will open a laptop after midnight and consider posting a photo of their weary face with a triumphant caption. Before they hit upload, there is one quiet question worth asking: “If this is the price of success, is it a life I would wish for someone I love?” The day enough people answer “no,” the performance will end, and a different story, one where achievement and health can coexist, can finally begin.
