In 2016, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu debuted their piece Can’t Help Myself at the Guggenheim Museum. Enclosed in a glass and acrylic cage, a robotic arm circles, sways, and dances in hypnotic movement. A deep red, viscous liquid oozes from its base. The arm attempts to sweep the liquid back into itself, to keep the mess contained, but the fluid is spilling in every direction. The liquid splatters the walls and stains the white floor. Fruitlessly, the robotic arm continues to sweep, with less and less time in between to continue its dance. Eventually, the hydraulic components start to fail within the arm and its motion becomes rusty and jagged. It slows to a crawl. In 2019, it is unplugged.
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu describe the work as representing “the pain that arises when immigrants are rejected and sent back to their country of origin by governments enforcing their borders.” But in 2021, this piece gained popularity online from an audience that mostly hadn’t heard the artists’ interpretation. It resonated as a universally relatable depiction of how the body feels when it is overwhelmed trying to contain one’s obligations, the maintenance of daily needs, the emotional work of being a contributing member of a family, a workplace, a society. It reflected how people felt in the midst of the pandemic, trying to keep themselves together when everything drained their energy and new, uncertain challenges presented themselves every day.
We wept for a robot that couldn’t help itself because we could not help ourselves.
Now, as life returns to some semblance of normalcy, the grace that was granted during the pandemic is fading and expectations of productivity and performance are increasing daily. But without being equipped with the necessary tools, many are finding it hard to “jump back in”.
If we picture ourselves as the robotic arm in Can’t Help Myself, the task seems futile. But fortunately, thanks to research into physiological and psychological factors for success, we can picture ourselves as more of a vase. Our vases hold water (energy), but since nobody’s perfect, there may be some chips and cracks allowing our energy to drain. So we can do two things to remain full:
Refill the Vase.
While you can plug many of the holes draining your energy using the strategies below, you will always need to expend some energy just to survive. Finding ways to recharge that tap into both physical and psychological best practices will prevent stagnation and burnout. Some ideas:
· Prioritize sleep. Operating at a significant sleep deficit over a long period of time means you’re operating at the impairment level of a drunk person.
· Work less than 50 hours a week. This runs counter to the workaholic culture dominating our spaces, but is one of the most effective ways to ensure enough time to recharge.
· Drink water and move your body. Basic maintenance of your physical self, in ways that work for your individual body, tie strongly into psychological well-being.
· Ask for help. Not only does it help distribute your workload, asking for and receiving help builds social bonds and connections in families, friend groups, and workplaces. And strong social ties are good for physical and mental well-being.
· Connect with low-stress people. Identify those in your life that make you feel recharged, not drained, after you interact with them. The people who value your “no” just as much as your “yes” will support your efforts to build boundaries, make space, and recharge.
· Write things down. Your brain is for having ideas, not holding them. Outsource the mental energy of keeping track of things to a pad of paper, notes app, or whatever low-friction note-taking method you prefer.
· Use your money to buy time, not stuff. Just as you outsource your note-taking, outsource the drains on your energy that cause you stress, and use that time to instead recharge. Whether it’s getting groceries delivered, the bathroom cleaned, or the kids picked up from school, buying the time it takes to accomplish those draining tasks builds space in your day.
· Move toward equity in emotional labor. Identifying all the places at work and home where you perform emotional labor and which ones can be outsourced to partners or teammates is a topic for its own article, but to start, read this comic and start thinking about how the idea applies in your own life.
Plug the Holes.
The holes in your vase are those little energy drains that eventually empty your reserves. Everyone has individual tasks and obligations which drain their energy more than others, so identify which sources of stimuli leave you overwhelmed and limit your exposure to them. Some examples of ways to plug the holes include:
· Streamline your decisions. Decision fatigue about what to eat, when to wake up, what to wear can wear you down. Build habits that take less energy to maintain.
· Take one whole day off each week — from work and other obligations.
· Say no to commitments that drain your energy, as much as possible.
· Put limits on your tech use (email, social media, texting).
· Limit how much change happens at once. If you can delay or stagger life changes to prevent too much major upheaval at one time, you will have fewer cracks draining your energy at once.
· Purge excess clutter in your life, physical and digital.
· Deliberately DON’T keep up with the Joneses. Releasing yourself from the obligation of fitting in prevents that pursuit from draining your energy.
· Limit how much news you consume. The 24-hour news cycle is designed to keep you on high alert all day. Deliberately set aside a limited amount of time to keep up with the news, and focus on news that specifically interests or energizes you.
· Use noise cancelling headphones to limit sensory overload in environments that feel draining.
Of course, privilege plays a huge role in how we refill our vases and plug the holes that drain our energy. Finding the options that are most effective for you and within your ability to execute is not a universal process. But taking the time to identify and experiment with your options will pay off in the long run by preventing burnout and creating lifelong mechanisms for navigating the stressors of life.
To feel overwhelmed is normal — the world is overwhelming. But when there is also the desire to do your best as a family member, as a friend, as a colleague, intervention to build your energy reservoirs and prevent unnecessary drain keeps you in the safe zone to avoid burnout.
