Hey, Hey, My, My

Rock'n'Roll Will Never Die.

Neil Young famously gave us the lyrics, "It's better to burn out, than to rust." Similarly, English '80s rock band, Def Leoppard wrote, "It's better to burn out, than fade away." There can be other interpretations to their songs, and what was meant, but the idea of burning out isn't a new one. Live fast, die young, as the rock anthem suggests is better than pacing yourself through life, and risking a dull existence.

Buzzfeed News author Anne Helen Petersen recently published an article entitled How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation. But I believe, like all things, it takes more than a generation of build-up for any long-range affects to be noticed. Burnout was always a buzz-word for Gen-X'ers as well, but we grew up in a time where we were just starting to truly identify, and label our ailments. Things that always existed, but couldn't properly be defined, such as Asperger's Syndrom, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or even properly defining acute depression, or anxiety issues wasn't quite in the common language yet. Medical science still struggled to properly define not just how to identify these issues, but more importantly, how to treat them. Often times, we still do. There seems to be a stigma the comes along with receiving such diagnoses, and as time moves on, we seem to be labeling ourselves as a society of illnesses, inadequacies, and excuses. Those negative views, in their own way, keep piling on the troubles we're experiencing. It seems like everyone struggles with something these days, from weight issues (ahem), to career issues, mental health issues, physical health issues, or just life in general. These struggles tend to result in other ailments including anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts, or manifestations. Much of this is sometimes summed up in a singular, simplified term:  Burnout. And burnout is becoming more, and more common.

In her article, Petersen points out that a lot of this manifests within an inability to manage minor tasks, and errands. Her examples point out a young man who has anxiety over putting letters in the mail. Other examples include a package sitting unmailed for over a year, a partner who couldn't deal with the paperwork demands of health insurance, which cost him over $1000 in additional bills, or someone with unwearable clothes sitting unreturned to the store because of their inability to take them back in a timely manner.

Sound familiar?

I'm guilty of many of these things, and more. So many important, yet minor tasks put off, most without even really starting. Too many to list. In part, I chalk this up to Executive Dysfunction Disorder. Students who exhibit Executive Dysfunction Disorder are often describe as having traits such as, “difficulty picking a topic, planning the project, sequencing the materials for a paper, breaking the project down into manageable units with intermediate deadlines, getting started, and completing the activity. And because these students frequently underestimate how long something will take, they’ll generally leave the project until the night before it is due." (Tracy Landon, Ed.D. Linda Oggel, M.A., CCC-SLP Innovations & Perspectives March 2002, Volume 5, Number 2, pp.1-2) The inability to get started on tasks - no matter how minor - and see them through to completion. Does this sound familiar?

In a generalized way, Petersen wraps all this, and more into the term burnout. But one point she made stands out to me beyond any other. It is something I have said before that is a huge issue with American society; an issue we have to get past, but it only seems to get worse, and that issue is, your value as a person is measured primarily by your value of production in our economy. Petersen asks, and states, "Why can’t I get this mundane stuff done? Because I’m burned out. Why am I burned out? Because I’ve internalized the idea that I should be working all the time. Why have I internalized that idea? Because everything and everyone in my life has reinforced it — explicitly and implicitly — since I was young."

The inherent truth behind this statement is a spirit crushing reflection on our society. We praise those who work themselves to death. We don't take our vacation days, or call-in sick, and have water-cooler conversations about how much PTO we've accumulated as if it were a badge of honor. We hand out awards for perfect attendance, but don't recognize how showing up while sick isn't productive, or may have had even more significant negative impacts to productivity because you shared what was making you ill. We brag about making it to work through that horrendous blizzard, scoff at those who played it safe, and stayed home, and then pity the ones who die in their car because they tried, and didn't make it.

We've been given this line, and lure of, "You too can be financially well off if you just work hard enough..." and when we don't see our hard work resulting in those promises of fortune, what do we do? Yeah, we work even harder, or take on side jobs, or get a 2nd or 3rd job, because we're obviously failing, or not working hard enough. It's rarely an examination of society, and how our systems are designed against us. Those are excuses. Those realities, the realities that impact all of us: just excuses for why you're not rich, yet.

When I ran my IT business, I often worked 60-80 hours per week, and sometimes even more. I would run from job, to job, client to client, and for a while, city, to city all over the nation. I loved it. I wore my hard work like a badge of honor. I had a contractor that depended on my company's work, but in a real sense, even more on my work alone. I was the manager, the organizer, the one they turned to. The coordinator would often ask, "Are you getting burned out? That's a lot to take on." I would always say I felt great, it was never too much, and everything they assigned to me, we'd knock it out of the park. I loved my business, and I was truly excited about the challenges, and the opportunities I was uncovering.

But there were so many things left behind. The mail, the bills, the organization, the managing all the paperwork required of a business doing what we were doing, and what we were doing was nothing extraordinary. I was burned out, but I felt like I was living up to the expectations of always being productive, and always maximizing how my time was being used to generate income. It has taken me over a decade to recognize that I was indeed burned out, and still am. I'm still struggle often with the little things, with taking care of what needs to be done in daily ways. My generation grew up with the idea that if you feel burned out, then take a weekend, and go camping, or go to the beach, and refresh. That never solved it, and it can't, because for every day that you rest, three more days of work pile up on you, so resting turns into fretting over how you SHOULD be productive instead of resting. These days people get caught up in social media, and their phones; a practice that takes the blame for their lack of attention to more important things like being productive. People have gut-wrenching guilt over a day of rest, binge watching a show on Netflix, or losing themselves in social media for an hour or more. But that is a symptom of a larger problem, not the problem itself.

Changing this requires an evolution of our society. Evolution isn't an easy thing. We look back at many species that have gone extinct, but we see their descendants alive today. Much of our social practices of the past have also gone extinct, and we are where we are today. Evolution doesn't move smoothly, without pain, or without destruction. We need to start asking the critical questions of how we live, and our expectations, and see where we need to make the changes that will further our society instead of holding us back, and damaging individuals with unreasonable, and outdated modes of thinking. Failing to evolve creates an unhealthy species that isn't adapted to its new environment, and one that eventually goes extinct.

It's time we start recognizing that reality.

Petersen concludes her article with an open ended question, and a brief examination of possible answers:

"So what now? Should I meditate more, negotiate for more time off, delegate tasks within my relationship, perform acts of self-care, and institute timers on my social media? How, in other words, can I optimize myself to get those mundane tasks done and theoretically cure my burnout? As millennials have aged into our thirties, that’s the question we keep asking — and keep failing to adequately answer. But maybe that’s because it’s the wrong question altogether."

And I believe that is where we are stuck. There's no amount of meditation, self-care, or reorganization of self that can cure burnout. It takes something entirely different: a refusal to play the game that society has created the rules for. Many of those tasks you can't start aren't needed when you stop playing the game. Worrying about always being productive goes away when you refuse to be measured by that. Your social media addiction will subside when there is less for you to feel a need to escape from, or put a façade on. The trick is getting past what society, and those around us expect, and demand, especially when it comes to financial survival, which today equates to comfort, and enjoyment, not just survival.

The question really becomes how do we move in that direction, not just as individuals, but as a collective?

Cupid Undies Run

A short promo video I created for the annual Cupid's Undies Run here in Buffalo. For more information, visit the Cupids Website Here. The event is a party, and a short run to raise money for NF, NEUROFIBROMATOSIS. This is a disorder that causes tumors to grow at random throughout the body. Check out the video on YouTube, or stream it right here.

 

The Weight Number

Maybe I don't need to lead in with this.... the number today was 218.6. Not horrible. Not in the right direction. But time hasn't cleared this week as I've been dealing with some unexpected life... things. Perhaps I'll get to the gym tomorrow.