Beyond burnout
I've told the story of burning out and quitting my dream job as a tenured college professor many times in different venues: in conversation, in print, on the radio, even onstage. It's my story, the most interesting and revealing one I have, and (I think) it doesn't just make sense of my life but might help others make sense of theirs, too. It's a sad story. When I tell it, I usually end with something like, "I was so miserable, I had to quit, the end." I cut the story there to emphasize the tragic dimension. This is a trick you can pull with any story. Cut a comedy at its lowest point, then fade to black: Instant tragedy. (I like to think about the 1983 movie "Strange Brew" in this way. Imagine if it ended as the beer tank was filling up with Bob McKenzie and Pam Elsinore inside. Not so funny now, is it?)
It really is tragic that skilled and idealistic workers burn out, thwarting their contribution to others' lives and making them unhappy in the process. But for me at least, that isn't the final word. I do often dwell on the negative, but I'm not actually a sad person. I rarely tell the story of how I became not-burned-out; I haven't told it publicly at all. As I begin work on a book about burnout (read more about it here), I've been reflecting on the slow change that has occurred over the three years since I left academia, moved to Texas, and started building a new life and career.
It's not a dramatic story. At some point I just realized I wasn't burned out. I no longer wake up in a state of dread. I don't feel trapped. My thinking is much clearer. I can plan beyond the next few hours. I don't violently startle when I hear any sudden noise. There's no magic to how this happened. I stopped doing the job that featured more stress than I could handle, and eventually, I got better.
That was a big success, psychologically, but it isn't a success story by some other important measures. I gave up a decent salary, great benefits, and unbelievable job security. As a freelance writer and adjunct instructor, I have none of those things. And my work now is hardly stress-free. Conference week -- when I meet with each of my students for 30 minutes to talk about their paper drafts -- wipes me out every time. Deadlines make me nervous. My essays and pitches get rejected a lot. But I'm learning to live with all of that, and on balance, I know I'm better off.
Burnout is contextual. Its major causes emerge from the work we do and the institutions we do it in. Remove the context, and you remove the burnout. It's true that structural, social conditions affect burnout. So does individual disposition. But both research and experience lead me to conclude that the best way to deal with burnout is to change the context -- the institution -- where you work.
For me, that meant leaving altogether. Quitting isn't a solution that scales up, however. Most people have good reasons to stay in their jobs, even jobs that are no good for their health and ability to flourish. For most workers, then, changing their institution will have to mean something different: talking with peers and supervisors about job stress and figuring out ways to reduce it. It might mean figuring out how to reduce workloads, or how to promote fairness and collegiality. It might mean reorienting the work toward the things that drew people to it in the first place: the human needs their labor is meant to meet.
Kaya Oakes wrote a terrific feature story for the current issue of the mega-award-winning magazine America about how people who work for Catholic institutions experience burnout and try to reorient their contexts so they can heal. As Kaya writes, "Burnout is more than a human resources issue, it can be a contributing factor to pushing people away from a faith they once loved." And if the key to getting beyond burnout is to change your institution, well, good luck with that when the institution in question is the Catholic Church.
But you don't have to change the whole Church -- or a whole corporation or hospital or school -- to beat burnout. The things that grind us down at work often exist at a medium scale: departmental policies, workload, unresponsive bosses, and so on. One burned-out worker Kaya interviewed had an honest discussion with her boss (a priest) about her workload and professional and spiritual needs. Together, they made changes to her job, and now, she's doing much better.
Here's the article again. It's a really sharp account of how institutions can stretch their employees' zeal and sense of vocation so far that they break. But it's also an account of hope.
It's summer, and I'm traveling some, so I may miss an upcoming first or third Monday when I usually send out the newsletter. But I'll be back. If you know of someone who might enjoy this newsletter, please encourage them to subscribe. And thanks for reading!
Jon