Are We ALWAYS Overwhelmed?

A new week lies ahead.

This morning, I was spending a little time looking at all the things "I have to get done" this week... and I already felt exhausted and rather flat. Not exactly the kind of feeling you want to bring into a new week!

But those moments of reflection also made me recognize that I feel overwhelmed by what "needs to be done," almost all the time.

Granted, I am describing the situation through the eyes of life in the USA, a country that is notorious for its excessive focus on both work and constantly being busy.

Recently, I was chatting with one of my cousins back in Denmark, and we were discussing what plans we had for the summer.

My cousin is headed off to Portugal for a couple of weeks, and she's also spending two weeks with a friend at a summerhouse near the coast, once back from Portugal.

By contrast, I'm going to be working during the summer, and any semblance of "holiday" during that period will be a three-day weekend excursion in June.

US culture really has a bad attitude towards the proverbial work/life balance: That is to say, there is no "balance!"

The idea of taking four weeks of time away from work during the summer, here in the USA culturally suggests one of two possibilities:

Either you are just lazy or you have so much money you can afford not to care about working all the time.

But there's a strange paradox here, because people really do value time off... but they just don't take or can't afford it, typically for fear of "falling behind" or "losing out" in some fashion.

Much of that can be traced back to the fact that work — as a general concept — is incredibly competitive rather than cooperative, in any way.

For example, you may be "perfectly free to go on holiday," but it is seriously "suggested" within work culture that if you do so you might not have the "right attitude" and you are likely to get overlooked (or put at the back of the line) with respect to getting promotions and pay raises. Because you clearly don't have the right attitude towards work.

I even know people who take their work phone with them when they do go on holiday, "just in case." That's not exactly "being on holiday," in my book!

I'm certainly not the only one who feels overwhelmed by the mere process of making it through another day. There's only so much one person can actually DO in a day, and if you keep adding to that... the ability to cope gradually breaks down.

And that's a bit scary!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!

How about YOU? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the mere process of dealing with life? Does your workload feel like it is always growing? Do you think this is mostly a USA problem, or a global one? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2026.05.19 00:11 PDT
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