Are You Okay, Man? Notes on Burnout, Autonomy, and Golden Handcuffs

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Who owns your 9-to-5? (And who owns YOU?)

I recently had a thought provoking conversation with a colleague. He mentioned his wife reaching a state of burnout. This has occurred in the past – last year in fact – which had prompted her to quit her corporate job and start her own consulting business. After six months, though, she decided the higher hourly earnings weren’t quite worth the hustle required to acquire clients. She found another corporate gig and has since been happily making her mark there.

But, like any high performer or Type A or even people pleaser, that means she’s pouring her whole self into this endeavor. She likes the work, she likes the people, and she likes making the people happy with the work. But at the back of her mind is this nagging thought….They own me.

As an independent contractor, she owned her work. She could use her work to find future clients. She owned her time, her clients, her products. She was free, but had to hustle to keep finding work to bring home the bacon.

As an employee, she doesn’t own her work, the company does. She couldn’t use her work to find future jobs. She doesn’t get to set to choose her schedule or her customers. She is wearing golden handcuffs, relying on a consistent paycheck without any of the hassle of backend logistics and administration.

The Great Trade-Off: Autonomy vs. Security

I think about this contradiction often, because I too am wearing golden handcuffs. On one hand, I have a consistent, reliable income and schedule. I have very good benefits and (for America) fair PTO. But my time is not my own and neither is my work, which creates a nagging thought at the back of my mind. It will be a question I continue to reckon with for a while: which is better for me – working for a company or working for myself? W2 life or 1099?

Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, the idea of owning your work feels like the natural, default way to navigate the professional world. On the other hand…

Having worked for the family business for over 15 years, I learned about the pressure, administrative overhead, long hours, and general stress of it all. I had freelanced and managed multiple side hustles through my 20s, and was relieved the day I started earning enough salary to say bye-bye to all of those headaches. I decided that I didn’t have what it took to become an entrepreneur.

After a brief stint at a small tech startup, I jumped into corporate L&D at a midsize commercial insurance company (though it feels MASSIVE to me). And I love this job. The work is fun and varied, often keeping me on my toes. My coworkers are a wonderful, weird, diverse group of people spanning the globe. And they’ve given me many learning opportunities that have revealed hidden talents and skills. The pay is good, the benefits better, and the hours consistent. Most of the time, my work stress stays at work (in my small home office).

But still, and yet.

My time is not my own. My work is not my own. While my boss gives us all autonomy over our schedules and deadlines, and always tries to consider the type of work we prefer to do when doling out projects, we do still get ‘assigned’ work. We all end up working on something that we wouldn’t otherwise choose. Occasionally “all hands on deck” situations arise where we all have to pitch in, regardless of specialty or swim lane. These are not inherently ‘bad’ things; they just are.

A Taste of Freedom

My recent 12 week medical leave* showed me what life could maybe look like if I didn’t work for a company. What my week would look like if I didn’t have to logon by 9 am every day, where I didn’t have to deal with performance reviews and OKRs. What my days could look like if I got to listen to my body, sleep as long as I needed and worked on what I wanted to do.

Because WORK is not the issue. I like work. I like being productive. I enjoy helping people, solving problems, and creating things. And being able to work on what I want when I want felt like such a luxury during my time off. Some days, I spent six hours deep diving into Wordpress troubleshooting or cleaning up metadata on thousands of photos. Some days, I felt waves of inspiration so I just wrote. Some days, I divvied my day up into hour-long chunks, working on different projects – photo organization, website development, content development, party planning, trip planning. And some days, I’d end up throwing my list of To Dos out because I got so caught up on just one of those things.

What a joy and privilege it was to experience a small sliver of what a more entrepreneurial life could feel like at this point in my life!

Internalized Capitalism & Time Anxiety

So back to my colleague and his burned out wife. He, too, has side projects and hobbies that he pours his time and soul into. Later this year, he’s speaking at a conference dedicated to one of his hobbies. He’s written and self-published niche books in his hobby area, performs at conferences, and participates in many related community groups.

On top of that, in trying to help his wife figure out next steps, he’s been thinking about how they might live a more entrepreneurial life to ditch the 9-5. Could they become landlords? Own a venue? Franchise fast food chains? Run a B&B?

Knowing all of this, one of his friends recently sat him down and asked a simple question: ‘Are you okay, man?’ He said he was seeing all of the hard work that my colleague puts into his side projects and hobbies, that his wife put into her own business and now her current job, and that he hears them often talking about side hustles that could become the main hustle. ‘I just wanted to check in and see if you were okay, and maybe talk to you about your time anxiety and internalized capitalism.’

My colleague said that’s when he paused. He’d never encountered that phrase before and it struck him.

Internalized capitalism. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and it’s something that I think about a lot – just not using that exact term since I didn’t know it existed lol. I’ve written in the past about that pressing need to be productive (and how we need to stop “shoulding” all over ourselves). My friends and I regularly discuss the guilt we feel for “wasting time” or anticipatory shame we feel at the thought of being perceived as “lazy”. I set goals for myself all the time, some of which I abandon, others keep me accountable. But without goals, I feel like I’m floating in the ether, not being productive. I even feel this persistent drive when it comes to my reading; I probably wont ever listen to podcasts because they aren’t audiobooks and don’t count towards my yearly book goal!!

Where does this need for PRODUCTION come from? Why do I need to feel productive, like I’m making progress on something? Some might argue it’s inherent character traits, just my proclivities, and nothing deeper than that. But it’s *always* deeper than that. Productivity is an inherent *American* trait that has been celebrated, revered, and romanticized since before we were our own country. (See! Even the desire to wanting to own our own work and make our own decisions is bred into American culture by our forefathers who wanted to run their own government and make their own decisions.)

To exacerbate the effects of internalized capitalism, we also have this idea of time anxiety. Another phrase I learned from my colleague, and another concept that immediately made total sense. It’s exactly what it is says it is and is something I feel more and more with each passing year. Those annoying axioms we hear as children – “Time flies!” – actually DO stem from truth. I feel the constant looming presence of a ticking clock (very similar to the characters in Dunkirk lol), making every minute feel precious. I always feel like I have too much to do, to learn, to see and not enough time to do it all! Too many books to read, too many countries to visit, too many people to meet, too many stories to tell, too many moments to spend with my family. And every day that I spend at work – working on work that is not mine during time that is not mine – that ticking clock gets louder.

In the meanwhile

My personal backlog is overflowing. Some days, it’s hard to concentrate at work because my brain buzzes with ideas for my own projects and future side hustles. Some days I give in, indulging my brain for a couple hours, dumping thoughts onto paper. I have to, in order to clear the brain space for my day job, where I am a high performer, known for strategizing and executing, and serve as a trusted advisor to many of my colleagues. I can’t just not do my work!

But I keep dreaming. Dreaming of not working for someone else, of pursuing my passions, and taking a few risks. I now know that my younger self, who declared her own incompetence and inability to live an entrepreneurial life, was wrong. At that time, it wasn’t something I had the capacity for. But I know now that I would like the chance, at some point in the future, to direct all of my “good employee” energy and imagination towards work I’m passionate about, work that is mine. Not anytime soon, for sure, but I certainly have some ideas cooking. Ask me in couple year, because if that clock ticks loudly enough, it’ll be time for me to say NOW.

My co-worker’s friend asked him a simple question: ‘Are you okay, man?’ If someone asked me that today, my answer would be: Yes, for now…. I see my own internalized capitalism. I hear that stupid time anxiety tick-tick-ticking away. And while I might still be wearing these golden handcuffs a bit longer, my mind is already free — free to learn, free to plan a different ending. I’m learning to make peace with the paradox; I can appreciate the safety, the great benefits, the awesome coworkers, the learning opportunities, the healthcare, while knowing that this is not my forever. Acknowledging that ticking clock doesn’t mean I have to leap off the ledge tomorrow; it just means I’m trying to influence the rhythm. The golden handcuffs might still be on, but I see a future in which my time is mine and I’m free.

I’m curious: how do YOU navigate this balancing act? Are you comfortably wearing your own golden handcuffs, or do you suffer a loud ticking clock too? Let me know in the comments!!

*I had two surgeries in April 2026 to correct my hip dysplasia, which had caused discomfort and pain for decades. I am happy to report that while I’m still in recovery and will be for a long time, I no longer have that deep pain!