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Burnout, butterflies and caterpillars

I'm done with Christmas Cards

Just wondering if anyone has been through burnout and feels like they are emerging from the chrysalis of burnout as a totally different being to the one that went in?

I'm still recovering - almost 2 years after the big crash - and all of the masking apparatus that I had constructed over decades was deconstructed in the chrysalis. 

I, as always, feel a need to have everything about my life to date mapped out, recorded, archived, indexed, analysed, understood, curated.

But something different is happening to me now. I'm starting to value the present moment more, and my focus is on the future. I'm starting to think "so what?" if I forget things about the way I used to be, if I fail to archive and index photographs and memories. As someone wise once said to me "Life is now".

I am caring less about what I feel I could/should have done with my intellect for e.g. and I'm more inclined to value just soaking up the sunshine.

Letting go of the need to record and analyse everything (even just mentally) is scary but freeing.

Anyone relate? 

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  • I had a similar epiphany a few year ago when I had a brain injury.   I'm not the same person that I was.  It's like all my masking has been broken and I'm very aware that I'm not the same person.   I can read documents from a few years ago and I don't recognise ever writing it and it's a much higher level than I'm able to do now - like comparing Shakespeare with The Mr Men.

    My language skills are very much reduced and my memory is shot to bits.

    I actually prefer the new me.

    I'm a lot less critical and much more easy going.   I can't work any more so it's nice to let things drift.   Nothing needs to happen in a hurry.

    I spend my life planning what I can do and trying new things.   White water rafting next week - sky diving the week after....

  • in reply to Plastic

    Yep that's kinda my thinking too. Irrespective of how I got here, I'm here. There are no rules about what I *should* do next. I'm not going to find a cure for difficult diseases or map the event horizon of a black hole with binoculars or find the missing link between relativity and quantum theory by happening on a genius analogy. I got a PhD by being in the right place at the right time with my brain in the right gear & my still-present analysis skills and doggedness. That doesn't mean I have to be a professor now.

  • in reply to I'm done with Christmas Cards

    Yeah - there's a time in life when there's a small gap between off-loading the kids and retirement to make some radical changes.   Most people are sleepwalking through life so don't spot the opportunity.

    In this gap, there are no rules - you can re-invent your self & change your life completely and get it on a better track.  

    We're looking at down-sizing and moving to the country - abandon the rat-race and go and do something less boring.   Fill the days with nice, positive things rather than the daily grind.

    We live in a crazy-expensive area - so we need to earn lots of money and work like dogs to be able to afford to live here.   It's a pointless circle.    There's people born in the poorest parts of the UK - they grow up, get married, have kids, get old & die there - without having to work like dogs to pay for an over-priced house.

    We have the ability to downsize and live moderately - not going to set the world on fire - but not going to die of a heart attack at 55.   Stress is the killer so the plan is to remove as much as possible.

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  • in reply to I'm done with Christmas Cards

    Yeah - there's a time in life when there's a small gap between off-loading the kids and retirement to make some radical changes.   Most people are sleepwalking through life so don't spot the opportunity.

    In this gap, there are no rules - you can re-invent your self & change your life completely and get it on a better track.  

    We're looking at down-sizing and moving to the country - abandon the rat-race and go and do something less boring.   Fill the days with nice, positive things rather than the daily grind.

    We live in a crazy-expensive area - so we need to earn lots of money and work like dogs to be able to afford to live here.   It's a pointless circle.    There's people born in the poorest parts of the UK - they grow up, get married, have kids, get old & die there - without having to work like dogs to pay for an over-priced house.

    We have the ability to downsize and live moderately - not going to set the world on fire - but not going to die of a heart attack at 55.   Stress is the killer so the plan is to remove as much as possible.

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