When Did Survival Become the Standard?

Karen Ferguson
Jul 31
5 min read

Modern life demands more than we can give, and expects us to keep going anyway.

There has always been pressure in life, that is not new. What has changed is how constant it has become, how embedded it is in every part of daily living, and how little space remains for being human without justification.

We are surrounded by guidance on how to cope, how to be resilient, and how to thrive. There are tools and strategies for every emotion, every struggle, every perceived shortfall. But more people than ever are tired. Not the kind of tired that rest solves, but a deeper fatigue that builds from constantly holding everything together.

This piece continues the conversation started in two earlier blogs: Is School Making Our Kids Unwell? and Is Work Making Us Sick? Both asked whether key systems in our lives are designed to support people, or simply to extract output while masking strain.

Now, we step back even further. If school creates emotional suppression and work reinforces silent exhaustion, perhaps the problem is not with those systems alone. Perhaps we have built a way of living that rewards endurance over wellbeing, output over presence, and performance over health.

Life as a Series of Demands

For many people, life does not feel like something to enjoy, it feels like something to manage. Work is demanding, parenting is judged, health has become a project, even rest has to be productive. There is little room for being inconsistent, uncertain, or even still.

From early schooling through adulthood, we are trained to prioritise performance. Children are taught to follow routines, meet standards, and behave in ways that make them manageable. As adults, we carry those habits forward, responding to pressure without questioning its purpose, tolerating exhaustion without seeking rest.

What once were natural parts of life, grief, confusion, frustration, uncertainty, are now often labelled as dysfunction, or seen as something to solve. Instead of making space for emotional variation, we are told to regulate, recover, and move on.

There is no longer much room for feeling unsteady. That space has been taken up by deadlines, routines, and the pressure to cope well enough to avoid becoming a burden.

How Constant Optimisation Shapes Us

Productivity is no longer just a work ethic. It has become a mindset that seeps into every part of daily life.

Health is not simply about feeling well. It is about hitting step counts, measuring sleep, and avoiding anything deemed inefficient. Meals become macros, breaks become performance recovery, parenting becomes strategy. Every decision is tracked, explained, and defended.

People are praised for being busy, motivated, and focused. They are less often praised for being kind to themselves, for slowing down, or for choosing a simpler path. Rest is framed as recovery, not enjoyment. Everything becomes functional.

This shift creates a quiet form of self-surveillance. Every hour must have value. Every feeling must be interpreted. Every dip in energy must be questioned. Living becomes a project to be managed.

This is not how people are designed to function. It may look like control, but it is often a response to a system that leaves no room for genuine rest or reflection.

The Cost of Constant Functioning

This pattern has real consequences. People may be functioning, but many are no longer fully present. There is a sense of emotional flatness, disconnection, or numbness, not because people are uncaring, but because they are constantly absorbing demands without recovery.

According to the AXA Mind Health Study, more than half of UK adults now report sub-optimal mental health. Fatigue, emotional dullness, and a sense of detachment are increasingly common. These experiences do not always meet the threshold for diagnosis, but they point to a widespread erosion of psychological wellbeing.

The Mental Health Foundation reports that around 70 million workdays are lost in the UK each year due to mental health issues. These include anxiety, depression, and stress-related illness, but also burnout, disengagement, and long-term emotional fatigue.

This is not just about work. these figures reflect a broader truth. If school conditions children to cope quietly, and work demands emotional stability on top of performance, and if home life offers little relief, people start to disappear into themselves. They function, but they do not feel well.

Early Responsibility, No Exit

What makes this system especially difficult is how early it starts, and how hard it is to step away from.

Children learn quickly what is rewarded and what is not. Compliance, stillness, and performance are noticed. Struggle, emotion, and dissent are often reframed as misbehaviour or attitude. As they grow, those children learn to mask, adapt, and perform.

By the time people reach adulthood, they have internalised the idea that resilience means carrying on, regardless of cost. They believe that stress is inevitable, and that needing help signals weakness or poor planning. And if they do seek support, it often comes with conditions.

Support systems tend to be reactive, not proactive. Mental health services are under-resourced and over-stretched. Employers promote wellbeing while quietly rewarding overwork. Even among friends and family, people can feel pressure to appear fine until things fall apart.

There is no clear point where someone is allowed to stop and say, “This is too much.” The system rarely allows it. People keep going until they cannot. And by then, recovery is slow, difficult, and often unsupported.

What Would a Healthier Culture Look Like?

The goal is not to remove all challenge. Life involves effort. But there is a difference between effort and depletion. There is a difference between growth and pressure.

A healthier culture would recognise that functioning is not the same as thriving. It would create space for people to step back before they reach crisis, and support them without requiring self-disclosure or breakdown.

It would include:

Systems that prioritise consistency over performance
Tools that support reflection, not just self-monitoring
Expectations that allow for change, fluctuation, and difference
Permission to rest without explanation
Workplaces, schools, and support structures that acknowledge early signs of exhaustion, and respond before collapse

This is not about lowering standards. It is about choosing standards that include health, humanity, and long-term sustainability.

The Bigger Picture

We are often told that modern life is just fast, and that we must adapt. But that framing ignores who built the speed, who benefits from it, and who is being left behind because of it.

If more and more people are withdrawing, breaking down, or switching off, we have to ask whether the system is functioning, or simply extracting.

When did we decide that surviving would be the measure of a good life? When did constant functioning become a goal? And how long are we going to pretend that the solution is more effort, better attitude, or a new strategy?

This is not about giving up. It is about asking better questions.

Because people are not the problem. The framework is. And it is time we made that clear.

MindMotive

Digital partners, psychologically grounded and quietly effective, because support should feel like support, not another performance.

MindMotive

Structured Tools for Complex Thinking

Psychologically grounded digital partners, designed for individuals, teams, and organisations who want intelligent support that scales.