Peter Sorgenfrei explores why people feel guilty when not working: they've tied their worth to job performance and external validation. When work stops providing excitement, lacking other sources of meaning like hobbies or relationships leaves guilt as the signal that something in the context itself needs to change.
Feeling guilty when you're not working is because we're so accustomed to working, proving our worth, right? That's how we get paid. That's how we make a living. That's probably where we get a lot of hopefully accolades from our, our bosses and our colleagues, like, hey, you're doing a good job. So when we're not excited about or motivated by our work, we feel guilty and we feel guilty because we were supposed to. But it's probably a sign that you're not doing the right thing in the right context. And if you feel guilty for not working, it's probably because you don't have that external validation from something else. You don't have the hobbies, you don't necessarily have the social relationships, you don't necessarily have the connection to yourself that is beyond the work, and that's why you're feeling guilty. So it's kind of a reverse psychology thing going on, I think.
