Meaningful

Burnout. According to Psychology Today, it is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion; cynicism and detachment; feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. When one is experiencing this, he or she could no longer function effectively on a personal or professional level.

Lifehacker states that it is a common misconception that burnout is simply a result of working hard or for too long. According to Alexandra Michel, a science writer at the Association for Psychological Science, burnout results when the balance of deadlines, demands, working hours, and other stressors outstrip rewards, recognition and relaxation.

The symptoms of burnout are shown by the breakdown of Sarah Geronimo during the American leg of her concert tour. People reacted to the event. Some bashed her for being over-reactive. Others empathized. But then, the poignant part of her speech was when she told the audience that despite the success and material rewards she is having, she feels EMPTY.

One of the reasons why people feel empty is the realization that they are NOT doing things which are meaningful. There is a certain thirst that they feel which sometimes motivates them to work their energy out. This thirst could be an unmet need during their younger years. They then strive to continually work out for the “meeting” of the need only to realize that the thirst is going to be unquenchable. It is for the reason that the need was not confronted and processed well. That is the significance why clinical psychologists and psychotherapists exist. They help people confront the shadow which continually haunt them. Later, people then realize that money, fame and material things do not count. It is love, affection, respect and the connection to the divine which count most.

It has then become the interest of persons who want to have self-mastery to find that MEANING they are craving for. The fact of being human must also be confronted well. There is a continuous debate on what could make a person happy and most of the sages point to the direction of spiritual maturity. A lot of us crave for the worldly things only to realize later that the craving won’t stop unless you go deeper to understand the inner person. The realization of living life simply is alien to most of us since we equate success with the riches that we own.

Mindtools.com then suggests that to avoid burnout, we need to work with PURPOSE. If you embrace the work that you are doing as meaningful, there is a tendency that when you extend your time and energy, you understand their impact to your mission. You might get tired but you know that your tiredness has a meaningful price.

We are individuals. We are driven with different purposes. We might consider money as a good purpose to be able to acquire things which could make us comfortable. But we need to understand how to slow down as well. For the work that we extend might allow us to get tired and lead us to gesticulate: I am not happy! I feel empty…

There are those of us who need others to fill that empty space inside. We think that relationships will make us whole to the point that we embark on one relationship to another to make us WHOLE. Yet, we might be looking for affirmations that we fail to have before. We might not have the parental support and nurturing backgrounds so we leave people behind since we are looking for that SOMETHING which could fill us up.

But these things all boils down to contentment. We need to accept the things that we have and share them to others. Humility would be attained once we stop comparing ourselves to others. We could be happy with what we have and do not kill ourselves to work hard to be at par with our contemporaries.

In Luke 18:22, On hearing this, Jesus told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when the rich man heard this, HE BECAME VERY SAD, BECAUSE HE WAS EXTREMELY WEALTHY.

It is in these lines where we could infer that the craving for more wealth could oftentimes become our source of being sad and empty. We could not detach our SELVES from our riches to the point that we forget the sole reason why we are here in this world: to be connected with our brethren through love, respect and affection.