Its a go, go go kinda world where we are in the finest of clothes but not the finest of minds. What a world we live in where the deadlines are sometimes the endgame, the only thing that matters after all. We balance our work and our dedication to the individual tasks that we are assigned with the delicate inter-workings of our basic human needs and desires. Our minds go until we tell them to take a breathe and decompress from all the stress we inflict upon them unfortunate for them we rarely do. We tend to go until the light and energy is depleted and we work with our emotions which barely have anything in the tank to operated.

I know in my role, i invest a lot of time and emotion in to the work that i do. As a person who is in higher education, my emotions tend to bleed into the role and it is my job to realize it and to stop the metaphorical bleeding. Its tough, there are long nights and early mornings, long calculated ideas and short off the cuff reactions. It gets to me ever so often. I tell myself to talk it out or not to invest too much into issue past the 4:30 whistle, there is a catch. i have the hooks in too deep, i’m too invested and it takes away from me. I cant always get out my own way and that can break my confidence from time to time and make me second guess if i’m some imposter and shouldn’t even be here. There are just sometimes i feel like a candle, burning the wick away.

Burnout is a real thing we all talk about it but really never do anything until its too late. We want to ignore the fact that the wick is burning too fast and still light our way with it. This hasn’t ever help one soul, if anything by ignoring the burnout you create an accelerant to the issue. To acknowledge the issue is to make the first steps in creating a slower burn. I think we all conceive the notion that we can reverse the damage by burnout and in fact that isn’t how you can solve the issue. We all burnout from time to time, that is inevitable but its what you do when you see it coming that changes the path of the person and there isn’t one correct way to go.

I have seen people ask for time off, change areas or even go to a different job because they felt that would make them happy. In the end, you need to be happy with the things you do that is one of the best ways to prevent burnout. There will always be things that frustrate you in your line of work but what needs to make you happy is the things at your core, what makes you come back for more each and every day for work. If you don’t have it you’ll find it somewhere either where you are now or where you will be going. Happiness is what we try to strive for but we sometimes just need to work a little harder to find it. I will have to take this journey very soon, the one where i can establish my core and figure out if this is what i want to be doing, is this worth all the emotional drainage? Am i even Happy? It will take a while but i think that i will find what i’m looking for very shortly.

If you are burning out, don’t feel like you are alone in this issue. Many of us fellow awkward adults are debating this many a times a day and some have found their answer and some are just starting to look. All you need to do as a start is to think. because i don’t think you should let the light burnout quite yet, you’re gonna need that soon.