"So," I said to Gabe, relatively out of the blue, as I do. "I was thinking about the part in Friends where [Character] decides to quit, and the boss is like, 'What if I gave you a better position?' and [Character] says, 'I want my own office. And an assistant. And an expense account' and the boss is like 'Done!' And then I was thinking about [Friend We Know In Real Life] and how his company wanted him back so much that they told him to name his price, he gave them an outrageous figure, and they actually agreed. I...I've never been that good at my job. I've never been so good that a company would do anything to keep me, so good that I could call the shots. And what's more, I've never cared to BE that good. But shouldn't I WANT to be that good? Shouldn't I want to excel at what I do?"
The conversation went on, and then landed here:
"You seem, in general," Gabe said. "And I don't want this to come out meanly, but you're in general a lot less passionate than you used to be."
"Oh, absolutely," I agreed. "Every single thing I think about, the first reaction I have is 'I'm tired.' The Fire Faery Story, work, dance, working out, church. I'm just tired. I don't wanna do ANYTHING. Ever."
"I'm sorry I keep coming back to this," Gabe said. "But I'm gonna say it again: you're burnt out."
burnout (n): 2a: "exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration"
And I know he's right. It's not (just) depression; it's burnout.
My natural inclination is to think I'm lazy, not burnt out. "Everyone has responsibilities," I tell myself. "You don't get to pull a millennial and label it 'burnout' and use it as an excuse to do nothing for six months."
But also I know this isn't how being alive is supposed to feel. This isn't how God created me to feel. Something IS wrong. Who I am at my core is passionate, willing and excited to do hard things. But gah, I haven't had the energy to spare for my Core Self in years.
I would chalk this up to baby blues/losing my pink/adapting to being a mom, but I've felt this way since around Covid, whether or not the pandemic actually contributed.
So what did cause this burnout? The thing I keep coming back to is my work, but I don't want that to be the answer, for a lot of reasons. 1) I love the mission of Classical Conversations, 2) I love(d) my team, 3) I loved my role on my team, 4) the company does a phenomenal job of supporting work/life balance and seeing its employees first as people, then as workers. There's no reason my job should have burnt me out, but somewhere along the line, it started feeling more soul-sucking than makes any sense.
Is it that I'm not cut out to do the same thing for that long? I was assistant editor for 4–5 years, then a curriculum developer for 4–5 years. Those don't feel like long enough stretches to burn a person out. Maybe I switched roles at the right time to prevent burnout the first time, and it was simply time to switch again, only I transitioned to stay-at-home mom instead? Maybe this is the transition I need?
Every time there was a new process or metric or idea at work, I was over it before the announcement even concluded. I was tired. I didn't want to figure it out. I didn't want to comply. I wanted to find any cut-able corners, any excuse to defer or delay. That's not the kind of attitude I used to have. It used to be that if I didn't have the energy to comply, I at least had the energy to resist XD The last few years I've felt like my soul has had a flat tire. The project I'd been working on for the last few years—
Ohhhhh.
Oh.
It's that. It's that project.
I LOVE the vision for a work project. It has to do with writing, and y'all know I'm passionate about writing—probably more than anything else. Writing, stories, characters, growth. This project perfectly aligned with my passions, but I wasn't the one who got to call the shots. Frankly, my team and my boss weren't always either. We served the masters of classical education and the company's owner. My role was to contribute and create, but someone else's vision, even if I disagreed with it. Toward the end, that happened more and more. The project drifted farther and farther from what I wanted it to be, and what I had originally made it. Lots of revisions, lots of shoehorning. My square peg vision in a round hole mandate.
That's hard for me.
It's really hard to lease out your passion, to hand the reins to someone else when your desired destinations aren't the same. After a while, it starts to make you hate your passion, because your passion just reminds you of the cage you're in. It's easier to close your eyes than see a view interrupted by bars.
As Gabe said, I've been so stressed for so long that if anything even comes close to brushing against a stressor, I'm over it. Get it away from me. I hate it.
Maybe I'm not cut out to use my passions for hire...at least not the way they have been.
This post was basically supposed to say, "Hey guys, I'm burned out. I don't know why, but let's go on a journey together to get my spark back and if you're feeling the same way, we can encourage each other!"
Instead it's become "Hey guys, I'm burned out. I don't know why—op, maybe I do and maybe I shouldn't write for a living any more?"
I don't necessarily think I'm landing on that for good, but I do want to circle back to the post's original intent: recovery from burn out. I don't know how to do that yet, but I want to think about it (and blog about it), and then document the journey, because visibility helps me stay accountable.
Random initial thoughts that I can hear over the baby screaming at her dad despite doing so well for the first hour of nighttime sleep:
- drinking enough water
- eating protein at every meal
- going outside
- doing tasks intentionally slowly
- finding a rhythm with Bible time
- getting enough sleep
- scheduling coffee dates with friends
Maybe I'll sort recovery ideas into mind/body/heart categories? Maybe I'll try to integrate one new good habit per week?
Leave it to me to turn burnout recovery into a project. Don't worry, I'll work on it.
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