I’ve been
contemplating the nature of Burn Out, because I’ve been suffering from a hard
case and have not been able to cure myself but for brief days at a time. But
the nature of these respites is shedding some light on the nature of the condition,
and seems to offer a potential way out.
How to
describe burn out? Extreme disinterest? A loss of capacity to apply oneself to
a job? A State of being over-exposed to / satiated with an unappealing, even
repulsive, set of conditions? Or maybe, coming from another direction, an
absence of energy and vitality, resulting from having been drained or
overworked? I’ve heard burnout described all of these ways, and a few others. But
there isn’t often much talk about what the condition is. When someone declares
that they are burnt out, it’s usually accepted, without any close diagnosis.
It’s similar to when someone comes into the office and says that they caught a
bug or a cold, and others immediately exclaim, “Oh, THAT! I had it too”, as
though there’s no doubt that they suffer from a malady that is closely related,
if not the same.
Of course,
the other thing that burn out shares with the ‘bug’ is that half the people who
pronounce their sympathy, and their allegiance to the cause of worker
self-protection, don’t really believe that you have anything at all. Which
doesn’t necessarily diminish the sincerity of their sympathy, since they probably
don’t believe that they have anything either.
A key part of
both the seasonal something and the case of burn out is just feeling bad, or not
feeling right, along with a sense of helplessness, rooted in the inability to
feel better.
I’m not a
disciplined person. I’ve always found my motivation to go to work in either a
desperate need of a paycheck, or a degree of passion about the work. It’s the
main reason I’ve rarely stayed in a job more than three years. I’m not the sort
of person able to go to the same place, at the same time, and do essentially
the same thing, month after month, year after year. As much as I try to
recognize the benefits of the sameness – the relative facility of doing
something I’ve done so many times before that I hardly have to make an effort –
that’s actually the source of the trouble.
Because
it’s inattention, it’s not having to look very closely or carefully at
something, that I’m beginning to belief is the source of burnout.
I’ve noted,
you see, that the times I begin to come out of burnout are usually times of
high focus, of close attention. It’s times I’ve taken something on, or had
something thrust upon me, when I’ve had to force my attention to the details of
a matter, and then to deal with them one by one, that I’ve found myself getting
better.
Is laziness
a factor? Maybe so. When I become used to a situation, I give it less of my attention.
I begin to take shortcuts, assuming some of the details, rather than
identifying them one by one. I let myself go with the general, rather than seek
out the specific. It’s quicker, easier. It requires less time, effort and
attention. And before long, that familiarity becomes a kind of weariness, then
boredom. And gradually, what was an interesting and demanding task has become
painfully dull.
But what
came first? Did becoming used to a situation precede taking the cognitive short
cuts, or was it the shortcuts that began to generate to sense of sameness, that
led to the adaption of a formula, a pattern, that slowly squeezed out
difference and uniqueness and whatever novelty might be in the matter?
My
meditation practice touches on this. The practice involves giving close
attention to minute details of sensation. And one of the things I’ve learned
from the practice is that attention enlivens. I was never aware of the energy
constantly coursing through my body, until I took up meditation and learned to
be sensitive to it. And I’ve developed a curious relationship to physical pain.
Instead of turning my attention away from it, I now focus on it. Because
attention lessens pain, sometimes dissolving it entirely away. Because, when I
examine it closely with my attention, I have to recognize what a gross,
generalization the notion of pain is. In fact, what passes as pain is usually
an accumulation of lots of sharp, tiny sensations. And sometimes they are
unpleasant, but often they are not. And if I’m willing to be with them, well,
often they turn out to be not nearly so overwhelming or uncomfortable as I
feared they would be.
So now, I’m
turning my attention to the burnout. Instead of staying with that label, I’m
trying to do that diagnosis that I referred to earlier as hardly ever
happening. What is it exactly that I’m experiencing? What precisely am I
feeling, and why? And I’m very curious to learn where this exploration takes
me.
