The AI Burnout is Real: Why I'm Ditching the Hype for the Long Game

Here's the thing that's bothering me about the AI conversation right now: people are treating it like an infinite, high-stakes sprint with no finish line.

When I was 23, I was a retail manager at a national bookstore chain. I remember opening a new store and working 16 days straight—opening boxes, merchandising displays, managing inventory, and dealing with a "Grand Opening" deadline. It was absolute burnout territory, but at 23, I felt unstoppable. There was an end in sight. So I just... did it. I was exhausted, but fine.

Fast forward to today. I'm 55, helping my 81-year-old father manage his property, and recovering from a brain injury that requires me to work in focused 90-minute sessions with real breaks. My priorities are different. My energy is different.

And I've realized the current AI hype is being sold as another 16-day sprint, except this one never ends.

Marketers are now fully immersed in the AI game, which means the pressure to "keep up" will never cease. There's too much money in selling you the next tool, the next technique, the next model that you "can't afford to miss." (And seriously, can some of these AI YouTubers learn an alternative to the word "INSANE!"? 🙄)

The pressure to "keep up" with AI is making a lot of people miserable. Every day there's a new release, a new tool, a new guru telling you that if you're not using THIS thing, you're falling behind.

I realized: We're all trying to keep up with AI when we should be focused on how AI serves us for the long term.

The "Keeping Up" Trap

Trying to keep up is an infinite game with a moving finish line.

You use all the big LLMs. You have an AI for every task. You bookmark 47 tools you'll "get to eventually." You save articles about techniques you "should" master. You feel guilty about not implementing the automation everyone says is "essential."

A friend recently shared an article about the absolute mental fatigue people are experiencing with AI right now. Layer that on top of everything else we're processing—the news, the world, the constant noise—and it's no wonder people are hitting a wall.

This mental exhaustion of constantly feeling like you're missing something, falling behind, or not doing enough—that's a different kind of tired. It doesn't go away, because the AI itself is moving too fast.

And of course, marketers have discovered that AI anxiety sells. So they'll keep feeding it.

But "keeping up" was never the point. The people building meaningful, sustainable things with AI are playing a completely different game. They're going deep on fundamentals. They're building systems that compound.

What If You're Already Winning (By a Different Set of Rules)?

I keep coming back to this question, and it cuts through all the noise:

"What are you unwilling to do, even if it would technically work?"

Maybe you're unwilling to spend your evenings learning another complex tool when you could be with your family.

Maybe you're unwilling to build a business that requires you to be "on" 24/7, even if it might scale faster.

At 23, I would have said yes to all of it. At 55, with my dad here and a body that requires me to be strategic about my energy, I have different priorities. And I'm betting you do too.

These aren't weaknesses. They are boundaries that reveal your actual priorities.

The irony is that AI gives you the ability to honor those boundaries and build something sustainable. But only if you stop trying to "keep up" and start playing the long game.

The Long Game with AI: A Framework for Sanity

I've been working on a framework that I'm calling The Long Game with AI. It's not about speed—it's about building a strategic advantage that compounds over time. It has three parts.

1. Audit Your Actual Work (Not Your FOMO) Before you try to automate anything, track what you actually do for one week. Be brutally honest. Then, look at the list of tasks and ask yourself that critical question: "What here am I unwilling to do, even if it technically works?"

For example, I could automate my morning newsletter reading, but I genuinely enjoy it. It's my quiet time with my coffee. Why would I automate away the joy in my work? This audit reveals your true priorities.

2. Pick Your One Deep Thing Instead of trying to learn 10 new tools, pick one AI application that solves a real, high-friction problem in your business. Then, go embarrassingly deep on the fundamentals of that one thing.

- If you're focused on content, go deep on a tool like Claude. Learn its "Skills" feature. Give it context, teach it your frameworks.
- If you're building, go deep on a "vibe coding" platform like Mocha or Lovable.
- If you're a YouTuber, master a tool that repurposes your video transcripts.

Mastering one tool that aligns with your priorities is infinitely more valuable than having a superficial knowledge of 50.

3. Measure What Actually Matters The common metric is "hours saved per week." That's fine, but it's incomplete. The more important metric is: What are you NOW able to focus on instead?

If AI saves you 10 hours a week, but you just fill that time with 10 more hours of scrolling AI news, you haven't won. You've just traded one form of busywork for another.

But if those 10 hours are spent with your family, brainstorming new high-level strategy, or simply taking a walk, that's the real victory. That's the long game.

Conclusion: Play Your Own Game

You are not behind. You are exactly where you need to be.

The only way to win the AI game is to refuse to play the short-term, hype-driven version. Define your own priorities. Set your own boundaries. Use AI not as a relentless taskmaster, but as a strategic, patient partner that helps you build a business—and a life—that you actually enjoy. That's the long game.