Maybe there are different kinds of burnout. The reason that statement seemed profound to me is because I have had experiences where I was doing something that

Maybe there are different kinds of burnout. The reason that statement seemed profound to me is because I have had experiences where I was doing something that was easy, that didn't involve any unethical behavior in this case, but it just seemed useless to me. I didn't care about it, I didn't find the work rewarding at all. And it led to burnout, eventually. Eventually I couldn't manage to get any of the (formerly easy) work done. It was still easy work. I was just burned out from doing work I had no interest in doing, even though it was easy. It wasn't really about stress, the work was easy, there wasn't too much stress. You're right that my motivation dropped as I got burned out -- that's why I couldn't even accomplish the formerly easy task anymore. But I never really cared about it, which is I think why it led to burnout. If I had found the easy work really important and rewarding, I didn't think it would have led to burn out. Maybe "motivation" isn't the right word, or maybe motivation can mean a few things at a few levels...