One beautiful sunny morning I woke up, as usual, to learn more about the Agile methodology and out of nowhere this horrid feeling took over me and I started non-stop crying 2 . hours . straight.
What caused it?
I have started a logical triage process. What happened today, maybe yesterday, that caused this? Maybe it happened a few days ago and I am suffering from what specialists call “Delayed stress reaction”? I don’t know. I am lost. I got to the first conclusion:
There . was . no . logical . explanation.
I started the process of trying to understand my emotions. How am I feeling? I am feeling overwhelmed. Why am I feeling overwhelmed? What made me feel overwhelmed?
It came to me. I was listening to a new song that came out recently, from a Brazillian singer, the genre was Samba, whilst reading about Agile. This beautiful song just started entering my emotional space, slowly, without my permission. It was just beautifully overwhelming. It reminded me of something that I have not had for a while: The joy of life.
And there it was. The trigger. The trigger was the song. The song reminded me of what was long gone for me. I have been driven for these last few years by career, by achievements, by things that do not necessarily have an emotional weight in my life, let alone a positive emotional weight.
After a full day of thinking about this event, I came to the realisation that I have, for long, avoided concluding: I finally reached the highest burnout point. I have been burned out for a few years now but I just did not know.
Social media is a terrible encouragement for burnout. Influencers are in their world, attempting to generate engagement and earn money by encouraging likeminded humans to be productive, to do more, guaranteeing the result is going to be amazing, you will get rich in 2 years, hell, in 2 months, if you just add that side hustle to your list of jobs.
And people like me and you, listen! We listen to experiences, we think: if they can, we can. Wrong! Comparison can be a terrible friend. It can make us forget who we are, and who we aim to be. Worse than that: it can make us think we are not burned out, that this overwhelming tiredness feeling is just how everyone feels, this is the new normal!
Let me tell you, feeling overwhelmingly tired is not the new normal. You are burned out and, like me, you always knew, now, who knows what is going to take you to finally realise it?
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