There's a kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with how much you did today and everything to do with how many versions of yourself you performed. The tiredness isn't physical. It's the weight of translation between who you are privately and who each room requires you to become. - Silicon Canals

"The deepest fatigue most people carry has almost nothing to do with physical output. It comes from the cognitive overhead of running multiple identities simultaneously, switching between them so rapidly that the person doing the switching forgets they're doing it at all."

"Each transition costs something. Not dramatically. Not in a way you'd notice in the moment. But the compound effect across a day, across a week, across twelve years in corporate, is a kind of depletion that sleep doesn't touch."

Exhaustion is frequently misdiagnosed, with many attributing it solely to physical effort. However, a significant source of fatigue arises from the cognitive burden of navigating various identities in different contexts. This invisible labor involves adjusting one's behavior and presentation in meetings, personal interactions, and other situations. Each transition between identities incurs a small cost, which accumulates over time, leading to a profound sense of depletion that rest alone cannot remedy. The impact of this code-switching is often overlooked in discussions about burnout.

Read at Silicon Canals