Burnt out? You need to read this book.

I recently learned that it can take up to 5 years to recover from burnout. In true Carrie Bradshaw fashion, I couldn’t help but wonder… is it pandemic depression or burnout recovery that we’re all collectively going through?

Speaking of Carrie Bradshaw, I first heard of the book I’m recommending this month when it appeared in the hands of the woman who played her, Sarah Jessica Parker, on a red carpet in 2018. I was delighted and annoyed when I came across the Vogue article titled “Sarah Jessica Parker Wore This Unexpected Accessory on the Red Carpet.” Delighted because this meant that being a reader was going to become a “cool girl” thing, and I fancied myself both. Annoyed because, as a trend forecaster, I knew that, once it did, it would mean we’d get a bunch of hot girl reading content. 

You see, the celebs would soon realize they could use the trend to make themselves appear complicated and interesting by juxtaposing their sexiness with their bookishness. Exhibit A:

I’ve spent hours reading leisurely on a (much smaller) boat, and I’ve never sat like this. Is she going to sit up every time she wants to highlight something? Maybe that’s how she got those abs. But back to our original bookworm: SJP bringing Otessa Mosfegh’s book My Year of Rest and Relaxation as her date to a red carpet! 

While Kendall’s performative reading seems to be more about communicating something about herself to the world (the Kendall Jenner Book Club is imminent), SJP seemed to be trying to communicate something about the world through this book, and I wanted to know what that was. 

I wasn’t ready. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a 288-page satirical portrait (or cautionary tale) of the distinct sense of unfulfillment facing privileged American white women. Our unnamed narrator is a deeply depressed orphaned heiress who, in seeking psychological treatment, is prescribed a growing list of medications that essentially leave her catatonic. Listlessly, she exists in her apartment, medicating herself, sleeping, and pondering her lack of will to be or do anything. While the narrator isn’t burnt out from working too hard or achieving too much, she is burnt out by the constant emptiness of her life, a metaphor for how status, beauty, and capitalism, all American ideals, do not guarantee quality of life. 

Throughout the book, the narrator often beats herself up for not having the drive to do anything, take care of herself, or even leave her apartment. What little energy she does have, she channels into self-destructive tendencies that only worsen her situation. In dealing with my own bouts of malaise, depression, and lack of motivation, I’ve thought of this book and–maybe because I don’t have a trust fund–have decided to focus what little energy I do have on being nice to myself.

In today's world focused on productivity, wealth, and channeling both of those into an aesthetic photo for Instagram, it can be incredibly easy to waste the little energy we have performing for others, but that’s only going to leave you needing a literal year (or 5!) of rest and relaxation of your own.