Entering adulthood is never easy. Juggling work, social life, and relationships can be a lot of work that needs constant attention and care and simply keeping up with everything can be detrimental to your health, whether physically or mentally. We take it upon ourselves to ensure that everything runs smoothly to satisfy everyone else, but it comes at the cost of our sanity. We also forget that we need a break and to be taken care of. This pressure to nail everything leads to feeling suffocated and eventually, burnout.
Burnout is a word that has been thrown around a lot but people seem to forget how significant it is to understand its meaning and how it affects our lives.
If we look at its definition, Helpguide describes it as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.
It seems pretty cut and simple, but each factor in the definition carries a lot of weight, burnout is not something that should be taken lightly. We already feel exhausted if we are not resting physically, so imagine all of the three elements of your health are at an all-time low, how can you expect actually to do well in life?
Yes, life doesn’t stop for any breaks, and time runs fast. Work duties never end and as an adult, that’s your job to have everything figured out, but if you’re in a burnout, why bother? Why should you feel like you’re the only one who can do everything and do it well? Why do you think that the ship won’t stop sailing because you took a break?
It’s time to be a little selfish, by that I mean embracing the burnout. There’s nothing wrong or immoral about being tired or feeling worn out.
Words are easily said, yet no one seems to grasp the idea of what being at burnout is like and even if they do, people find it difficult to admit that they need help thinking it’s a sign of weakness and reeks of irresponsibility, there’s no shame in resting.
Allow me to explain further, as we grow older, we are expected to be fully responsible for handling everything without a smidgen of mistake or error, this constant drive to perfectionism and adhering to what society or work demands, make it difficult for some people to admit defeat and accept that they cannot bring the same energy and enthusiasm like before.
These feelings of shame and constant stigma around resting should be obviously conquered and we should be more accepting of the fact that we are not machines.
Even computers get better treatment than we allow ourselves to do so, because If we rest our computers or turn off our phones because they lag and not functioning properly, why can’t we bring ourselves to rest too?
There’s a significant difference between embracing burnout and becoming a full-time procrastinator, which people often confuse when considering taking a break. Accepting that you’re in a burnout doesn’t make you a lazy irresponsible person, in fact, it shows awareness and maturity. Being a grown-up means knowing when to stop and rest and when to keep going, so by denying yourself from resting, you’re hurting yourself by being stubborn.
When we let go of perfectionism and imposter syndrome that drives us to overwork and focus on our mental health, we can see things we couldn’t see before, and be able to enjoy the minor and fine things again, the key is, never to feel ashamed for simply being tired.
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