The overperforming society

January 11, 2026

We live in an age where performance has quietly replaced being. We are constantly encouraged to optimize every corner of our lives : to be productive, resilient, ambitious, visible. To turn passion into output, rest into recovery, emotions into self-work. 

Somewhere along the way, “doing well” stopped being enough, and e are now expected to be doing better, constantly. There is little space left for pauses, little tolerance for slowness, doubt, or emotional inconsistency. Down days are treated as inefficiencies, exhaustion as a mindset problem. Vulnerability is acceptable only if it comes with a lesson. We are allowed to fall, as long as we rise quickly and publicly.

What we’ve built is an overperforming society: one where value is measured by output, availability, and visible progress. Where rest must be earned, silence is suspect and stillness feels like failure.

And the irony is the pressure doesn’t come from institutions or systems. It comes from us: from what we praise, what we post, what we reward in others and demand of ourselves. We’ve internalized the expectation to always function.  There is no real room for “down” anymore,  only for “temporarily off”, “processing”, or “working through it.”

And at some point, this stops being abstract. It becomes personal.

I feel it in the guilt that appears the moment my energy dips, in the need to justify rest, to explain pauses, to make sure that even my low moments remain productive. I notice how quickly I push through instead of listening. How instinctively I self-correct. How easily I treat my own limits as something to fix rather than something to respect.

But being human is not a linear performance. There are days when nothing is optimized, when motivation is absent and when strength feels inaccessible. These moments are not failures of character or discipline. They are part of life. And yet, I’ve learned to hide them. To perform resilience, to stay functional and keep going.

What have we done to ourselves? We’ve created a culture that fears fragility more than burnout and that celebrates endurance while quietly ignoring the cost. And in doing so, we’ve lost something essential: the permission to be human without justification.

So here’s to a new year, and a realization. Maybe what we need isn’t another framework, habit, or optimization strategy. Maybe all we need is space to pause. And the courage to stop asking ourselves to perform our way through being human. 

Happy 2026, fellow human. 

With love, from Sophie