Burnout!

Ever get to a point where you just feel burnt out in every single aspect of your life? Life at home, life at work, life with your friends, family, loved ones? And it's not necessarily anything they've done, just common, run of the mill, 'need a break from it all for a while' burnout?

This is where I am right now.

If it were just one or even two parts of my life, I could deal. Just take a little break from that area, focus on something else, come back in a few days or weeks refreshed and ready to tackle things with a new perspective. But alas, it's not just one or two parts of my life. It's every. Single. One.

And this need of a break is even extending to things that I'm not even actively doing. I've got a pile of unread books sitting around that I've been putting off. Movies, a small handful of games, TV shows, backlogged. I've got half a dozen creative projects that I've been intending to start, false starting, started and shelved... Sometimes, I have the time and just don't want to get into it, and other times, it's all I wanna do but I'm stuck doing anything else. It's maddening, really.

But its the big areas that I'm more concerned with.

Work burnout, however, gets a lot more worrisome. It makes you sloppy, less professional, and more willing to take chances just because you really don't give a fuck. And of course, I work in one of the more upscale, professional types of places in the casual dining hospitality industry, and it's been starting to show that I'm cracking a little under the surface. This is something that I really need to put the brakes on now, before I really screw up and get an unwanted kind of vacation. The kind that involves making a full time job out of finding a full time job.

Home burnout, is probably the least affecting one I have right now. Things around the house are fairly stable and for the most part, relaxed. There have been a few bumps along the way, but for the most part, everything lately has been getting a lot more manageable. Would a change of scenery be nice? Absolutely. Will it kill me to wait a few more months? Not right now.

Social burnout, this can get linked to two separate social circles.

My drinking circle, I've really cut back on the last few weeks, because of all the extra work I've been having to do. Of course, in my line of work, working more makes that end of shift beer sound that much better, but I've been trying to cut back on spending, and drinking out is the first thing to go. This'll change in a few weeks when a night or two out becomes a bit more affordable. It's been kind of nice not getting into a lot of the drama that comes out of these though, so there's another bonus.

My geeking circle, we've been getting burnt out on fast moving deadlines for goals we haven't been able to hit just yet, and everyone involved has been feeling the strain. Some people have already started taking the time off to recover, which puts the rest of us at a disadvantage, because we can't do things without them, which causes us to get more frustrated, which causes more burnout related breaks, which just becomes cyclic. There's other things involved here as well, which I have to take a bit more shit for since I'm in something of a leadership position in some aspects of things. This, likely, will become another post topic later on.

That odd center of the Venn Diagram of my primary social circles, ironically, is totally stress and drama free right now, thankfully.

So what can I do? I'm already planning a vacation early next month, which should help immensely with the work, home, and drinking circles. Said vacation corresponds with some things relating to my geeking circle, which deadlines hit or not, won't matter because 99% of our current projects will get scrapped and we'll be into something totally new. And maybe while I'm on this vacation, I'll figure out exactly how much juggling I really need or want to do, and come back with a few less plates in the air.

After all, everyone prefers 'moderately relaxed, smart assed because it's funny and I don't really mean it' Me more than 'rediculously stressed, extremely angry, purposefully mean so you'll leave me the hell alone' Me. I know I prefer the first one.