Robert Vlaho
patreon
[UPDATE] I haven't burned out, I swear
🕑 Added 2024-01-19 17:53:59 +0000 UTCBut I’m well on my way to getting there.
What I want this update to be, more than anything, is a confession. Not just privately to myself but to my audience because that way, I don’t get to brush it off again and hide it under the rug.
If you’re worried that this means a hiatus or a break, don’t be. In fact, I’m hoping to write more, not less, but there are some important things I need to discuss first.
Writing has been my job for just a bit over a year at this point. I do love it. I do enjoy it. But it's hard. And this is something I haven’t been able to admit to myself.
My last job was in manual labor. I made statues for a living. And this is a business I’ve been in for a long time, helping out even back when I was a kid. To me, this job has always been a benchmark for how difficult something is to do. Because it's a line of work I’ve hinged a lot of pride on, I kept elevating it in my mind as a difficult, demanding thing to do. Which it is. But writing is harder.
The thing about manual labor is that once you’re done, you’re done. You pack your shit up, go home, eat, take a shower, and the rest of the day is yours. You don’t have to think about work. There is nothing left to think about. Your body does the work while your mind does whatever it pleases (as long as you don’t endanger yourself, of course.)
When you write, you work 24/7.
When you wake up, you think of your story. When you do chores, you think of your story. When you shower, you think of your story. When you walk, you think of your story.
When you’re with a friend or a relative, and the conversation is boring? You doze off and think of your story, probably uninterested because you aren’t talking about writing.
This has been my life for the last year. But now, it seems that the juice has run out. I don’t think about my story, actually—which is a problem since I then have to sit down and deploy my creativity manually.
You see, for the longest time, I’ve been beating myself up for not working hard enough. In my own eyes, I only really worked when I was actively working—because that’s how it's always been. Only concrete work is actually the productivity part. So I’ve been forcing myself. Again and again and again and again, day after day after day after day, it’s always the same story—a deadline is coming up, and I have to finish my work.
I’m just going to be 100% honest for a brief moment. I am just very tired. I feel as if I’m on the brink of coming down with a cold almost all the time. My back hurts. My head hurts. My stomach hurts. I’m tired. I’m so exhausted, and I just don’t want to be.
I’m simply not taking care of myself the way I should be. I’m not materialistic; I don’t care much about money past the fact that it keeps my life stable and my wife and I fed. The only thing that really kept me going this long was the constant rush of external validation and the fact that I was truly enjoying myself. Now, I’m not. And I don’t get external validation. Not any I truly care about enough, while I hyper-focus on anything even vaguely negative about my work.
What I need to do now is a change of pace. This is my job. Not just my life or just something I do all the fucking time, but my job. JOB. I think it's time to treat it like one.
What does this mean for my schedule? In the short term? I honestly have no goddamn clue. I hope to do more, like I said, but I will need to seriously change the way I treat my writing.
And I need to start living my life again.
Again, this is no doomposting. I had to get it out of my system. And this is just to make sure you guys are up to date with everything since my schedule might become a bit weird. Let’s hope it’s in a good way.
Cheers, everyone.
Have a wonderful day.
Comments
Orthomalleus
Hey man, I think you hit the nail on the head. You need to treat this like a job. That is, with a schedule, and short and long term goals, and regular assessment about whether you met those goals. And that schedule needs to include down time. You need to take days off, and take weeks off too. I have what most people would consider a demanding job, and I still get most weekends off and take a couple weeks a year off. If you don’t take time off, and that includes mental time off, you’ll burn out. So don’t think of downtime as a short term loss of productivity, even though it is, but view that time off as an investment in still doing this job 10 years from now! Good luck! I enjoy your writing and want to still be reading it next year.
Your health is the most important thing. You should definitely take a vacation. Your health is the most important thing.
Eric W
Take a break dude. Your health is important. I'd rather that than quality going downhill.
kiwi
I would rather you produce half as much content if it means you can keep up this quality, so take all the breaks and time you need (just don't drop anything)
kiwi
LMAOOO! That made me genuinely burst out laughing.
Skyra
Welp 💀
Robert Blaise
I'm 23 💀
Skyra
Hi there. Regarding bunch of small health issues if you are over 40 it maybe worth it to look at new studies regarding glynac supplementation if you are less than 30 it is absolutely pointless though. If you find it interesting and want my personal anecdote of how helps feel free to ask.
Beeees!
Ya, sometimes I look back at school and wonder how I was so productive through each semester of college and able to work 12+ hours a day. But I realized another factor there is that it's a 15 week sprint and then finals, then you have time to rest. While with work it just goes and goes and goes, so the pacing has to be different by definition and more sustainable
The Golem Crafter
Take another break bro. I'm a plumber and I can understand where this comes from. Thinking takes energy and concentration and when those run out its like you smashed the brakes going at full speed. Slow down, take your time, and learn to truly enjoy the work. Work isn't work if your enjoying it 😁
Virken
Thanks for the update, and I wish you the best. I can empathize on the "never rest" kinda thing as with school, I just never stop thinking about homework that's due, and how I should be studying more. It's very mentally draining. So definitely do whatever you gotta do to enjoy it, because as far as I see it, there's no bigger enemy to progress than a lack of motivation.
Derrick McDowell
I'm excited and scared.
Kyse
I really hope you can just take a bit of time for yourself to relax and figure out a way to cope. Either that or just look at funny critters online and hope it works.
Lotfi Adam
I applaud your honesty, and I wish you the best of luck in finding a good work-life balance. I, too, think writing is a job, whether it's paid or not, and to treat it like something else would be missing the point of it, that it's supposed to be laborious and taxing, like anything worth doing is. But like all things laborious and taxing, you gotta give yourself time to rest as well.
