I’d like you to imagine a rock face. We are looking up towards the very top. If a rock were to fall over the edge, it would initially be clear of any obstacles. It would be in free-fall, travelling swiftly, gaining speed until it eventually collides with an outcrop on its descent. The rock’s trajectory violently changes, and now starts to spin. Dust flies, the trajectory is now more erratic; sometimes the rock arcs into the air, like some graceful ballet dancer, other times it is now barely in the air, skimming over the ground. Then the rock crashes one more time and fragments. Its journey is over.
This is what burn out appears to be like to me. This has only become apparent in recent months as I approached my 61st birthday. Previously, it had not been recognised. The life that I have led has quickly raced across the screen. As I look back, I can see the challenges of: flying in the military, in times of political and military tension, in the preparation for a potential war, and in actual conflict; those days when I would dedicate my life towards teaching of the secondary school children; and then in church ministry, working 6 days a week to walk alongside folk in their older years, looking to make sense of a world which had changed so much. My life has been one of service. It has been one of giving to the other and not being one to think first of myself or of the family. It is the latter that I most regret. Much of my life has been focussed upon where we could live for my work, causing my wife and the children, to take, very much, a back seat.
It was down to the love of my wife that I could finally see through the ‘black cloud’ of depression, actually see what my life was about and the lack of consideration for others.
It need not have been this way. I have now learnt that burn out is not a label : it is a bus stop we can pass through on the way to living once again – if we learn to choose.
If this is something which resonates, or you know that it might equally well apply to someone else, then this shared experience might help.
I am really enjoying the dialogue