We all love a good performance, ain’t that right? Who doesn’t enjoy Soul Sisters, The Nutcracker or All I Want for Christmas Is You when the season comes around? We’re filled with joy and nostalgia when we see a great show.
But we really don’t need to go to the cinema, or even a screen, to watch brilliant performances. They’re everywhere on campus. Your classmate sighing dramatically about their 9am lecture, your friend who hasn’t slept in two nights because “y’know, deadlines”, the person posting study-session stories like they’re a Netflix original. Everyone’s acting, and the play isn’t about learning anymore. No, it’s about looking exhausted enough.
There’s something dangerously beautiful about the image of the overworked student. Not the feeling, of course; the idea. The idea of staying up till 4 am, surviving on Monsters and blind panic, means you’re doing something meaningful. It’s everywhere: in films, on TikTok, even in the way we talk to each other. Burnout has been fused with the language of ambition. Tired means dedicated. Overwhelmed means passionate. Saying “I’m stressed” becomes a kind of praise.
Let’s be clear. This is not a student problem. It’s a narrative problem. We’ve been taught to treat exhaustion like a badge, a signal that you care enough to collapse. And when the performance is everywhere, it starts to feel like a requirement. It’s no wonder we start to act the part. Looking exhausted is safer than admitting you’re unsure, or, even worse, just… fine. Rest looks suspicious in a world that celebrates struggle.
But the glorification of busyness isn’t harmless. It flattens everything, like a steamroller of the mind. Thoughtfulness, curiosity, creativity… they don’t fit neatly into a Google Calendar. Real learning takes time. But slow doesn’t trend. You can’t post a screenshot of patience. So, we end up chasing a version of success that’s loud, visible, and exhausting. We study out loud. We rest publicly. We frame breakdowns in soft lighting and motivational fonts.
Oh, and rest isn’t safe either. You’ve probably seen it: the Sunday “reset routine” reels, where someone in a grey sweatshirt and a strawberry headband wipes down their desk, lights a candle, and calls it healing. The notion of rest has become another task. It’s branded, optimised, measured, and filtered. If you don’t have a Spotify playlist for your skincare, are you even relaxing correctly? If rest becomes just another job, it’s no surprise we run straight back to the one that at least feels productive.
And if you’re not performing stress, it can feel like you’re doing uni wrong. Everyone’s booked. Everyone’s running. You open your calendar and see colour-coded anxiety. You’re chasing coursework, lecture notes well written, part-time jobs, reading you’ll never finish (and you don’t want to), and that elusive feeling that you’re becoming someone impressive.
And the library; don’t get me started. It’s the most competitive silent space on campus. People race for seats like it’s Black Friday. You sit down, unzip your tote bag, take out a laptop, water bottle, three books you won’t open, and stare into the middle distance just long enough to be seen. It’s part learning, part silent performance art. People laugh about performative males, while they do the exact same thing. Studying becomes less about what’s happening inside your brain and more about proving you’re “still in the game.”
Of course, universities don’t cause this culture directly. But they certainly don’t discourage it. There’s always another opportunity, another deadline, another “life-changing” application you should definitely submit by midnight. The message is quiet but constant: your value is in your output. And if you break down, well… that’s your problem. From the outside, it still looks like success. That said, our Uni is doing a lot right. Therapy slots, wellbeing events, mental health surveys and campaigns, drop-in sessions… it’s clear that support is available, and that someone is thinking about how we’re doing. But culture doesn’t change from a flyer, and the real pressure often comes from somewhere else entirely: social media feeds full of overachievers, friends we silently compare ourselves to, and the feeling that if we’re not overwhelmed, we’re falling behind. It’s not just the university that needs to shift, it’s us too; the systems we’ve internalised, the metrics we’ve learned to chase, and the stories we keep telling each other about what success is supposed to look like.
We even joke about burnout constantly, but the jokes are a cover. Most of us are just scared. We’re scared to stop, scared to rest, scared that someone else is doing more and doing it better. So we default to motion. We keep sprinting, half-resenting everything we signed up for but too afraid to say no.
And the truth is, this pressure doesn’t come from laziness or fragility. It comes from the opposite. Some students I know are working far harder than anyone should have to just to stay afloat. We’re tired because we care. And that care is being put into a system that mistakes collapse for commitment.
So what should we do? Stop applauding the collapse. Stop turning exhaustion into a lifestyle. Stop treating breakdowns like plot points in some glamorous academic drama. Rest shouldn’t feel like rebellion. Saying no shouldn’t feel like failure. You don’t need to be on fire to be seen. You don’t need to earn sleep. You don’t need to apologise for not joining the fifth society of this week. You are not a machine. You are not a productivity project. You are not a walking to-do list in Adidas.
University should be a place for thinking, not just performing. For becoming someone, not proving that you already are. So yes, we’re all part of the play. But it’s okay to step offstage. To walk home early. To stop clapping for the spectacle of suffering. The curtain will still rise tomorrow. You don’t need to collapse on scene to matter.