How Not to Burn Out
and what to do if you already have
This past winter, I burned out. Boy, did I burn out.
I don’t know if it was the pandemic, my unhealthy mind or one too many shitty Tinder dudes, but by Valentine’s Day I was existentially toast. Burnt toast, to be exact, the kind you have to scrape the char off of to make it edible. I quit my job, left all my lefty organizations and spent months hiding in my aunt’s spare bedroom, trying to find where all the life in me had gone.
I know I wasn’t alone in this experience. Between all the ways the world is crumbling down and all the new fuckery it props itself back up with, it’s no wonder we’re living through a veritable burnout pandemic, too. We’re a planet of people exhausted, dispirited and running out of reasons to keep trying. I read an article a while back that said that what we call burnout is often simply grief. Ours is a culture that doesn’t accept grief, doesn’t give us space and time to pause, listen to our negative emotions, and do the slow, hiccuping work of healing.
But we must heal. It’s the most important thing we can do. So, this is an overview of what I’ve learned so far about how to do that healing.
First, it’s important to remember that burnout is a symptom. It is indicative of an internal imbalance. When you are burnt-out, the…
