Burning Up
The ever-talkative “they” say that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Passion is like a perpetual energy machine, allowing you to keep going without having to stop to catch your breath. Picture the dedicated scientist, the frenzied writer, the insomniac artist. We live our lives based on that idiom and try to find something. But passion burns bright and hot, and the hottest fires burn out the quickest.
Photo by Kamaji Ogino, 2020.
I wrote about bed rotting and rest in one of my first articles for Raandoom. I briefly mentioned burnout in the piece as an afterthought, a side effect of everyday life. For the uninitiated, burnout is a state of exhaustion spurred on by prolonged and persistent stress. It can leave us feeling stuck, emotionally tired, and unmotivated. When you get burnt out on your dream job and your passions, the symptoms go from bad to insidious. You have the classics like fatigue, self-doubt, overwhelm, and disinterest in what you love. But you also see self-doubt become disappointment; guilt cannibalizes you as you struggle with projects; negativity bleeds into the beliefs you hold about yourself. We tie our identities and self-worth to what we love. Under normal circumstances, this is good, but when that love is what you do for a living, it ties up your worth into your productivity, success, and ability to pay bills. We’re only a quarter into the year, and we have seen successful YouTubers like MatPat retire or step back because of the toll content creation takes despite the love they have for it. These creators, like many others, cannot have a proper work-life balance because their work is their life.
Photo by Ian Lanterman
The answer for burnout should be rest and reprioritizing our interests. Therapists tell us that when we are burnt out, we should focus on our passions. “Fill your cup,” mine tells me. It’s sound advice. Find what motivates you, what relaxes you. But for me, writing is relaxing. It focuses my mind, and I feel my muscles release. The tension disappears. It’s more potent than playing games, reading, or even going on walks for me. But I have to expend energy before I get energy back. I have to get started. I have to pick up the pen. I have to come up with something to say. And when I am already tired, exhausted, and frustrated, I have very little in reserve. Burnout makes us ration our energy. The bare minimum and immediate deadlines take precedence while everything else falls by the wayside. Guilt from procrastination makes the idea of taking a break more like breaking your legs. Setting boundaries sounds impossible because of that aforementioned work-life issue. The bridges to recovery all seem to be paved in failure, and some of them are. The tried-and-true method of hitting rock bottom is a fine reset button, and one I have used many times. I do not, however, recommend it. I don’t have much to recommend because I am in the throes of burnout as I write. But I can say this: slow down. “Slow down” is not an instinct many passionate types have. It is a skill to develop, and it’s purposefully vague. For me, slowing down is forcing myself to write despite feeling emotionally dead. For you, it might be plucking guitar strings or doodling during lunch. The fire in your belly is not perpetual, but it can burn for a pretty long time if you take the time to care for it.
