Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Where Work Is a Religion, Work Burnout Is Its Crisis of Faith
New York Magazine: "People who are suffering from burnout tend to describe the sensation in metaphors of emptiness—they’re a dry teapot over a high flame, a drained battery that can no longer hold its charge. Thirteen years, three books, and dozens of papers into his profession, Barry Farber, a professor at Columbia Teachers College and trained psychotherapist, realized he was feeling this way. Unfortunately, he was well acquainted with the symptoms. He was a burnout researcher himself."
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5 comments:
Ah burnouts... they're no stranger to me. When I get REALLY passionate/into something I tend to spend all of my time and energy pursuing whatever that something may be. The benefit to that is I tend to get good at things very fast, but the downside is... I focus so much on that thing that after a while I just don't want to do it anymore. There are a lot of things I look back and wonder... what if I had stayed with it.
I often wonder the same thing. Many things, particularly when I was young, were like that for me. But it also happened when I hit a hard time and I was just too scared to mess it up after I had been doing so well and so I missed out on a lot of things because I backed out. And I too often wonder how things would be now if I had stuck around through the "hard" part when I didn't want to do it anymore. It became a pet peeve of mine so I've tried my best to stray from that and have been doing well.
I of course have also been the victim of burnouts, but I see it as something I bring upon myself. I tend to take on way too many things at once and have trouble saying "no" to people. When you overload yourself with work, the moment you experience freedom from it you will be reluctant to return to the working world.
I was fascinated, however, when the article brought up the point of happiness being equal to reality over expectations. Often we expect of ourselves more than reality will allow and that leads to frustration and causes us to burn out even faster. The key is to set realistic goals for yourself and be persistent with those goals.
I forgot about that type of burnout Naomi. I think those are the worst kind - the one where you get really good (usually a comptetively set activity) and the pressure is so much to continue to perform at a high level that all of a sudden you just don't want to do it anymore... You don't want to let people down if you fail. I hate that kind... I think it's the worst kind. I can't go laserquesting anymore because of that... Although, I'm not sure if it's technically a "burnout" but it's just as bad. =/
I burnt out the end of my junior year of high school but I wasn’t really aware of it, and when the faculty brought it to my attention, they basically told me to push through whatever was going on, and get back to work. Not the best idea perhaps, but I did, and I guess I got over whatever it was that was coming across so negatively. I do wonder, however, what would have happened if I had just said no.
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