The traditional promise of work was simple: Support your life, care for your family, and build toward meaningful milestones like purchasing a home or saving for your children’s education. But for many modern professionals, that relationship with work is shifting. Instead of working to live, more employees feel they are living to work, caught in a cycle of rising demands and insufficient rest that is driving burnout and chronic stress.

To make the situation worse, the very things that once helped employees maintain some sense of balance, like taking paid time off, having manageable workloads, and benefiting from flexibility, no longer feel guaranteed. This raises an important question: Are today’s professionals building careers that genuinely support their lives, or are they sacrificing their lives to sustain their jobs?

 …