My Dear Old Friend: Burnout

My new favorite item on my to-do list is simply: “ALL OF THE EXTRA CREDIT BECAUSE FOR SOME GOD FORSAKEN REASON YOU DECIDED THAT “just passing” WAS ENOUGH…NEWS FLASH IT’S NOT”

It speaks for itself and doesn’t really need any additional context but I’m gonna provide it anyways. I constantly joked before coming to college that “C’s get degrees” and that was the bar I was going to hold myself to instead of the absurdly high one I had set previously. Then I realized that I rely way too much on academic validation to ever do that. And then I ignored the well-thought advice of my peers, family, and therapist and have dug myself into a burnout cave where I simply am hanging on by a hair.

It’s funny how little I understand when it comes to time management. I don’t think I’ve ever said “wow I’m balancing really well” and was executing a time management schedule that wasn't unhealthy. Sure I thought I was the peak of balance, but in reality I was just too sleep-deprived and caffeine ridden to realize I was crashing and burning at a rate that cannot be viable.

I’ve convinced myself that being able to put everything into a calendar and show up to things on time are the only two qualifications one needs in order to be good at a work/life balance. Who cares if all I’ve consumed today is one can of RedBull and the lukewarm remnants of yesterday’s iced coffee, I successfully made the 20 minute drive between meeting #1 and meeting #2 of the day in under 15 minutes. Gold star.

As I typed that out I now realize how I sound to all of my friends and all of the dots are now connecting. They are all justified in their criticisms and I am simply incapable of being self-aware.

Anyways, I have finally come to the light realization of this fact and am now struggling to recover from the absolute dumpster fire I have created for myself. Since the beginning of this semester I have been completely blacked out, not in an alcoholic sense, in a I have no idea what I‘ve been doing with my time sense. In years prior, when I would feel the creep of burnout coming I would simply go into autopilot mode and just vibe on cruise control until I was able to stop crying and think my version of rationally. This time I reverted back to default mode, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Something hit my ‘reset’ button and now I’m aimlessly doing stuff in hopes something will activate me.

And something did.

Instead of the regular amount of stress and fear of failure that used to jolt me back to reality, a wave 10x that has washed upon the shores of my consciousness and now I am trying not to drown in my own whirlpool of anxiety. I am so looking forward to the summer and next year as I have adequately (I hope at least) planned out my schedule to allow me to breathe and properly function in society without breaking down. Until then, I will just run on the fumes of burnouts past and pray that I can at least go home with a fraction of my sanity.

Eyes Bigger Than A Schedule

Last semester I boasted about my newfound ability to say “no.” Now I am searching for where that common sense went in the last few months.

One of my fatal flaws is that I am incapable of understanding what "too busy” looks like. I have always been someone who sees an hour of free time and feels guilty for not filling it with any kind of activity. My main goal for freshman year was to break that pattern of time management and learn to create a healthy work/life balance. It got there, for a short moment in time, and yet here I am looking at a calendar with spaces of nothing and all I can think is “I’m not doing enough.”

And in my heart I know that’s not true. I know that just because I have one free afternoon doesn’t mean I am lazy or inferior to others who are out and about, it just means I have free time and that’s a good thing.

I don’t long for the days where I was running myself into the ground to the point of physical sickness and yet I keep coming back to that mindset.

The reason I feel so inclined to reflect on this unhealthy habit is that I am currently on hiatus for two of the projects I am a part of. We are using the month of March to focus on independent study and research so our regular meetings during the week aren’t happening. As I sit in my room with nothing to do on a Monday night for the first time in months, I am stricken with guilt and convince myself that I am a waste of space that contributes nothing meaningful to society. Which doesn't hold any actual merit outside of my own mind but I haven’t been able to convince myself of that yet.