Inevitable Burnout
Disclaimer: It’s also important to recognize that burnout doesn’t have to be work-related, it can also be present in our social lives. Being burnt out of a relationship or friendship, is perfectly normal. Usually, this type of burn out is handled with distance and time with yourself. In this article, I’ll mostly be focusing on work-related burnout.
burn·out
1. a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress.
With online school, and with the hustle of forced productivity taking over our lives, burnout is unsurprisingly common. It’s getting harder and harder to draw the line between being productive and being unhealthy. So how do we regain control of our own lives?
The Causes.
The insatiable pursuit of productivity is present in every facet of our lives. We constantly feel like we must be productive to feel validated and satisfied. To feel like we deserve a break. This type of mindset is evident in our “brag-about-it” culture, where every topic, no matter whether the effects are positive or negative, we feel as though we are in competition with everyone around us. Take sleep-deprivation as an example. As a sleep-deprived high school student, if someone complains about only sleeping for 5 hours, I almost reflexively blurt out that I only got 3 hours of sleep. As if, valuing schoolwork over my sanity and wellbeing is not only a necessary evil of academic success but an earned battle scar meant to be shown off. Almost as if being sleep-deprived grants it’s sufferer superiority over a well-rested individual, since we like to equate a difficult workload and success to feeling emotionally and physically unwell. This undeserved arrogance stems from a deeper issue: many believe that if their workload doesn’t feel impossible, they aren’t working hard enough. Essentially this perspective tells us if I don’t sacrifice some part of my life whether it be my physical health, my relationships, or my mental wellbeing, I am simply not working hard enough.
Due to this way of thinking many force themselves to constantly be doing work, no matter the quality of said work. Working themselves to the bone, yearning to feel any drop of accomplishment. One of the best ways to explain this mindset is through this quote from Charles Bukowski:
Charles Bukowski
A controversial German-American poet.
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery—isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
There is no truly “right” way of viewing this quote. You can either understand that if you are going to attempt an endeavor you should see it through to the end, success will eventually come, though slowly, through harrowing trials and tribulations. The other perspective is to ruin your life temporarily or perhaps permanently, if it means being successful, but once you achieve this success, you will once again be alone, but hold a higher place in society. When people chase success, their original plan is the first perspective, but almost too often, their mindset evolves into the latter, leading to burnout and various other consequences.
The Symptoms.
Feeling as though you’ve lost control of your success is a very normal part of burnout. Sufferers feel like they are no longer in control of their own destiny.
How does someone feel when they are burnt out, well in a word: drained. Drained of organic motivation, if motivation does still exist during a burnout stage, it’s purely from external sources, driven entirely by the fear of disappointing yourself and others. Drained of compassion for others, since sufferers feel as though they’re lost at sea, helpless and alone, they’re unlikely to be in a state of mind to care about other people’s problems. Finally, perhaps the most damaging of them all, being drained of a sense of accomplishment and success. Your self-esteem gets throw out the window, while the impending feeling of failure slowly consumes your life.
How to Deal With it.
Asking for help is one of the best ways to help with burnout.
The most attainable way of dealing with burnout is staying productive in a non- work-related aspect of your life. This means investing in a small hobby or staying social with people you love. The people around you are there to help, you must understand that you aren’t alone. Open up to your friends and family, vent about your issues, and stop yourself from feeling guilty about sharing your emotional load. These are relatively easy and fast ways of dealing with being burnt out, but they’re a mere bandage for a bullet wound. Distracting yourself in other areas of life will stall your mind, but it won’t solve your core issue: the perspective in which you view your life. You must look at work in a new way, the work that consumes your life must be of some value. Meaning that you should focus and invest in the parts of work that you enjoy. You must regain balance to truly feel your best and to live a healthy life. To regain balance you should take the time to reevaluate your priorities. Ask yourself if you are willing to sacrifice your mental wellbeing for your flawed idea of success? Is trading your happiness for a certain goal/lifestyle a valid trade? These are questions only you can answer.
Personal note
Speaking from experience, living life as a person who’s success dictates whether they’re happy, is exhausting. You turn into this comparative monster who’s willing to do anything to succeed, whatever the word success means to you. It isn’t enough for me to simply exist, I must be constantly better than everyone around me, to be innovating, overcoming, never complaining, and most of all: doing everything alone. Because if I dare to ask for help, I feel like I’ve let myself down as if I wasn’t hardworking enough to handle my responsibilities on my own. From the moment I ask for help, I feel as though I’m not responsible for my own success. That’s a rough mindset to be trapped in. Carrying the weight of personal responsibilities entirely on your own back, is such an unhealthy way to live your life. Sadly that’s something that many people, including myself are only realizing when they’re already burnt out.
One of the hardest pills to swallow while in a burnout stage is accepting that it will happen again. Burning out is so rooted in the way I live my life, that I know for sure that it will happen again, in fact I can bet on it. It’s an inevitable and inescapable part of all of our lives. No matter how awful that sounds, it’s also comforting in the strangest way. Knowing that other people are also going through burnout, is a way to feel validated in your emotions, and know that you aren’t alone in your feelings.
The first step to solving any issue, is to recognize there’s a problem. The moment you admit to yourself that you’re burning out, you can begin to help yourself feel better. Personally, this is the most burnt out I’ve felt in a long time. And to be perfectly frank, it sucks to admit that, but that’s ok, and it’s apart of growth. Things that I’ve begun doing to help with burnout, is taking breaks and not feeling guilty about it. I force myself to be social and stay active, because it provides me with a sense of productiveness in an area of my life that isn’t work-related. Most of all, understanding that burnout will not be solved overnight and that it won’t ruin your life is one of the most helpful things you can do for yourself.
I wrote this personal note, not to turn this article into a vanity project, but instead to help anyone who’s going through burnout understand that they aren’t alone, and maybe even take some advice from this note. Burnout is not something to be ashamed of, it’s a natural and human part of your life. Even though burnout is pretty awful, at least you can be confident that you care deeply about the work you do, if you didn’t care so much you wouldn’t be burnt out. This article is personal to me, and is most likely personal to many people reading it. If at any time you need some support please remember that Palette is more than a website, it’s a community that cares about it’s members, never forget that you always have a friend here. :)