How I Burnt Myself Out
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I look at when I last published here and cringe at nearly six months having passed. It took me some time to understand why: burnout.
Just Too Much
As I’ve gotten older, it’s become clear how quickly time passes.
This explanation only slightly describes what happened. Honestly, I hadn’t entered my Medium account very much. I had a lot to handle. There were unexpected commitments that needed additional attention. Also, in some areas of my life, I was unnecessarily pushing myself too hard. To find time for self-care (including for reading and journaling) to “keep going,” I had to set my writing aside.
Returning to the beginning of this section, where I mentioned time quickly passing, this is what happened with my writing. First, during the afternoon or evening, I would push my writing time back a few hours. Then, those hours turned into days, which turned into almost five months.
So, here I am, discussing how I delayed doing something I love: writing. Creating content is something that, for a long time, I’ve done in various forms. As a kid, my parents bought me a plastic typewriter, which was later replaced with a real portable typewriter. A few years later, my parents bought a PC. I watched the show Doogie Howser, M.D. and saw how, at the end of each episode, he wrote digital journal entries, so I started to do the same.
Also, these incidents coincided with being a “big reader.” I constantly read books. I don’t know when, but, then, I started to imitate some of what I read. At that time, I started writing what I guess could be called short stories (they were “stories” and they were short).
I won’t review my entire history. However, let me just say that I have loved exploring different kinds of writing. The fact that I stopped writing for six months says a lot. After much hindsight, I can now admit that it was something that I needed (to do).
I NEEDED TO TAKE A BREAK.
How Much Further (Harder) Can You Go?
Looking back, I think that I tried “doing it all.” If something came up, I did it. While I knew that I could have asked about tasks’ priorities to better plan, I forgot to do more of this. I did a lot of things for others without taking (enough) time for myself. By…
