When Zahaan Bharmal lost his first job just nine months into his career, it felt like a fundamental violation of how the universe should operate. The physics graduate had believed in Newton's second law - that force equals mass times acceleration - applying this principle to his professional life with the assumption that hard work would inevitably lead to success.
The Chaotic Reality of Modern Work
Bharmal's redundancy came during the summer of 2001, as the dotcom bubble burst sent shockwaves through the global economy. His employer, a management consultancy, was forced to cut jobs alongside countless other companies. This pattern would repeat throughout the decades that followed - the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crash, the 2011 eurozone crisis, the 2013 rupee crash, and the 2015 Chinese stock market turbulence.
None of these crises were predicted with precision, and most began with small, seemingly insignificant failures that snowballed into global catastrophes. This phenomenon mirrors chaotic systems in physics, where tiny variations can spiral into radically different outcomes despite being governed by clear laws.
The Three-Body Problem in Our Daily Lives
Bharmal found particular resonance in the 'three-body problem' from physics. While two planets orbiting each other follow predictable paths indefinitely, adding a third body creates such complex interactions that the mathematics becomes unpredictable. The system remains governed by physical laws, but infinitesimally small shifts can throw everything off balance.
This concept applies not just to financial systems or astrophysics, but to our personal and professional lives. Many people respond to this inherent unpredictability by attempting to exert more control - optimising schedules, working harder, and operating at maximum capacity. Bharmal admits he followed this approach, believing that pushing himself to the absolute limit was the path to success.
Britain's Burnout Epidemic
The consequences of this high-pressure approach are starkly visible in contemporary Britain. A recent report from Mental Health UK revealed that 91% of UK adults have experienced high or extreme stress in the past year, with young people feeling this most acutely.
The statistics paint a worrying picture of Britain's work culture:
- Nearly half of young workers regularly work unpaid overtime
- 84% of UK desk workers feel pressured to work overtime regularly
- 65% need to work at weekends to complete their job requirements
Bharmal compares this situation to a power grid operating at 100% capacity. During normal conditions, such a grid functions adequately, but when unexpected demand surges occur - like millions of air conditioners switching on during a heatwave - the system overloads and fails. Engineers build grids with approximately 20% surge capacity to absorb these spikes, recognising that resilience requires intentional inefficiency.
The Phase Transition of Burnout
Bharmal's personal experience with burnout reminded him of another physics concept: phase transition. Water heated gradually shows little visible change until it reaches boiling point, then rapidly transforms from liquid to gas. Similarly, people can absorb mounting stress while appearing fine, until they reach a critical threshold where the system flips.
This explains why burnout often feels sudden, even though pressure has been building for months or years. The Keep Britain Working review recently highlighted an alarming increase in people dropping out of the workforce due to mental health conditions, suggesting that the expectation to operate at 100% capacity with zero surge capacity may be making people unable to work at all.
Bharmal has since developed techniques to build his personal surge capacity, deliberately leaving slack in his schedule for the unexpected and recognising that recovery isn't a luxury but essential. He argues that we've built an economy that celebrates overwork and treats burnout as personal failure rather than a design flaw.
Until we recognise that robust systems require slack and that resilience depends on inefficiency, we're simply optimising our way toward collective collapse. Newton's second law still holds true in physics, but its application to human endeavour requires understanding that it's not just about how much force you apply, but knowing when to ease off.
