When you have nothing left to give to others, what do you give to yourself?
I’m tired, so very tired. Like some form of a constantly exhausted pigeon, I no longer have the energy for myself, let alone others. I wasn’t always this way, I used to have so much time and love to give. But, I was forever distracting myself from my own problems and focused on helping other people with theirs. Whenever tragedy or disaster struck, I just kept on keeping on, burning the candle at both ends. Throwing myself into work and making sure I was always busy. Now, I can’t seem to keep up and I see the same in so many others.
Society moves at such a rapid pace, burnout is inevitable. We work long hours to try and get ahead in our careers, to buy a house and pay the bills. To go on that yearly holiday. We are constantly trying to run at 110% and being set back if we don’t.
God forbid if something happens in your life outside of work, like a baby, an injury or the death of a loved one. Social life? Don’t push it. We don’t have the time. Or the cash. Not if you want to stay in the running.
“Work until your dead, that’s our motto!”
That’s not actually a quote, as far as I’m aware. But I feel like it should be the slogan of every government campaign. If they were honest.
Making sure you have enough time and energy to spend with family and friends is exhausting in itself. So where do we find the time for ourselves? To do something that we really enjoy, or even just to sit and think?
When do we get time to recharge?
Because my battery’s empty.
In order for us to keep up, something in our schedule has to give. That something is usually ourselves.
I had to change this bad habit after hurting my back and then losing hours at my job. It forced me to stop and think. I have a lot of grief that I haven’t dealt with over the years and it all caught up with me at once. Losing my main source of income has been the straw that broke the camels back (pun unintentional, I mean *cough* yes, I am just that witty).
It was the catalyst to realizing that I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep putting myself last. My heart wasn’t in life anymore. I hated my job, a career I had worked so hard to get. I was tired, I am tired.
Trying to keep up with something that I haven’t loved for a long time has been killing my passion and creativity. It has completely changed my whole personality and not for the better. I have become shy, anxious, moody and fiery all at once. It is no longer worth it.
I find it sad that it takes a major shift in life for us to realize this. We put ourselves on the back burner constantly and we pay for it in the long run.
So, I have made myself a priority, because I am no longer just an option. I need time to recharge so that I can feel like myself again. So that I can give back to others. So that I can give back to myself.
Something in the way society runs and thinks has to shift, something in the way we, as individuals, think. We are not machines. We can’t just keep going.
Even machines have to be charged.
The only ones who can make the change are us. Consensus is a powerful thing. We need to shift the “work until your dead” mentality and make time for ourselves. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard, but we need to allow time for ourselves as well.
Sometimes, we have to say no to commitments. Sometimes, we just need to take a step back, take a breath and re-evaluate. We need to give back to ourselves before we are able to give anything to others.
