Are You Trapped in a Golden Cage? |
Many of the people I work with as a burnout coach tell themselves a golden-cage story. On paper, their jobs and lives might look good. And yet, they are exhausted, dissatisfied, and quietly desperate for more time, energy, and freedom. They long for a different rhythm of life – but feel financially trapped.
The story they tell themselves goes like this: It would be reckless, even irresponsible, to leave this job. I have too much to pay for. I can’t afford to step back. I have to keep up my standard of living.
Over the years, our expenses tend to rise in tandem with our salaries. Mortgages or eye-watering inner-city rents, childcare, holidays, beauty treatments, streaming subscriptions, and the many quiet costs of maintaining a particular standard of living all accumulate. In a cost-of-living crisis, this pressure becomes even more acute. The result is a creeping sense of financial entrapment with little wriggle room.
What makes this especially tragic is that many of us are too stressed, exhausted, and time-poor to enjoy what we have worked so hard to afford. We long for more time – and then spend the little free time we have consuming, often in ways that aren’t even satisfying. We binge-watch series in a half-comatose state. We eat non-nourishing food. We drink too much wine to take the edge off. We shop online for fleeting dopamine hits. Even holidays can disappoint us because we expect too much, or else we collapse into them so exhausted that we immediately get ill.
Much of our consumption, if we are honest, is automatic, habitual, or impulsive. It is not joy-driven but stress-driven – designed to medicate exhaustion and emotional depletion. Retail