A year in the wilderness

What I (haven’t) learned

I quit my career over a year ago. Completely burned out after ~14 years of constant high-pressure journalism jobs, deceived and bereaved by workaholism, and fully undone after trying (and failing) to hold together my team during the first year of the pandemic, I was barely functioning. 

It’s hard to say which was worse, my physical health or my mental health. At some point, it’s a choice between your money or your life. And I chose to liiiiiivvvvvvve! 

So I walked away.

The Big Answer(s)

And now, after more than a year of deep reflection, healing, rebooting, remaking how my brain works and how my actual nervous system functions, I have been preparing to share great wisdom for others braving this same wilderness–how to come back from burnout and re-enter the world and uncover what it is that you’re put on this earth to do, buoyed by the promise of peace, contentment, and fulfillment on the other side of this terrible, terrific adventure. 

Ready? 

ARE YOU SURE?

I. CAN’T. HEAR YOUUUUUU, I said ARE. YOU. READYYYYY????

Okay. Here it is:

[cricket sounds]

...k, so, I don't actually have much for this. 

I'm not being coy. I really don't have the clarity or insight you would hope for after all this time. I have some ideas, and some notions, and some suspicions, but little in the way of helpful, broadly applicable, repeatable advice or wisdom.

And I don't mean to sound agnostic. My conclusion is not that this stuff is unknowable, nor necessarily that it's so subjective and individualized that every single person has to reinvent the journey for themselves.

But I don’t have the Big Answer(s). 

Perhaps it's simply that all of this is so complex and inexact. As much as I would love to offer a pithy catchphrase that encapsulates and summarizes it all, the Big Answer doesn't fit on a bumper sticker or an Insta post. 

How do you know when to walk away from toxicity? How do you heal–like, what are the steps and component parts? When do you know you’ve healed enough? In the process, how do you know when a feeling is informed by your maladaptive former self or if it’s the truth you’ve discovered with your newfound clarity, or or or or or? And when will you know it’s time to try again? And how do you decide what you’re going to do with yourself forever after?

I still do not know. But below is the best I got for ya.

Insufficient metaphors

There are some obvious and common metaphors that apply to rebooting yourself (including “rebooting” as a computer metaphor). Probably the two most popular ones are the butterfly, where you enter a cocoon and emerge a beautiful new creature, and the phoenix, where you burn up but are born again from the ashes.

The problem with these metaphors, it turns out, is that they're misleading about both the What and the How.

In both cases, the new creation emerges suddenly, strong and powerful and more beautiful than ever. Both take a moment to shudder and shake once they're reborn, and then almost immediately fly away as the orchestra swells. 

But we (humans) don't become new creatures. We just hopefully get better at being the creature we already were, ideally with less alcohol consumption and improved interpersonal skills. And we don’t grow showy plumes–best we get is scar tissue from closed wounds. For us, a "rebirth" isn't a rebirth at all. It's just a healing process.

And although being healed is great, the healing process suuuuuucks. The idea of a chrysalis sounds quite peaceful, doesn’t it? You get all cozy and squishy, take a super long nap, and then BAM, you’re a sexy butterfly.

Alas, no. Healing is painful and interminably long, rife with false starts and setbacks. It requires rest (intentional, deep rest at that), but it’s not restful per se. 

And it's not always clear when you're healed enough to rise to your feet and stumble back into the flow of productive humanity. You don't sprout wings and launch into the atmosphere with a sweeping flourish. You gingerly test to see if the repaired parts hold up. You keep testing, paying close attention to signals from the pain. And even so, sometimes you re-injure yourself or fall ill again. And although when you heal you may be stronger than ever, other times vulnerable fault lines remain, and you have to be careful not to stress them to the breaking point, for the rest of your life.

The phoenix is an even less accurate metaphor. Which is too bad, because if I’m honest with myself, I was waiting for that Phoenix Moment–a glorious, triumphant moment of sudden rebirth, and the burst of energy and strength that comes with it. But now I understand that’s not how this works. 

There’s no moment. 

Things I think I know

Although I don’t have the Big Answer(s), there are some things about which I’m reasonably certain. I’ve jotted them down below, in a format I’ve shamelessly stolen from sportswriter Peter King: Things I *think* I know:

-I think I know my experience is common. I presumed that I was going through a unique, profound, personal evolution. And then a couple of months after I quit my job, burned out and exhausted, vowing to make a change, I started reading about the Great Resignation, in which millions of people were doing the same thing as me for ostensibly the same reasons.

Also, at one point, my shrink kindly and succinctly informed me that this sort of early midlife crisis stuff “is developmentally appropriate for someone your age.” Like puberty, it turns out that this is indeed a unique, profound, personal experience and is also a widely shared human experience.  

-I think I know that mental health is suuuuuuuper important. Get help. Get diagnosed. Take medicine. Get multiple modes of therapy. Discover your trauma(s) and work through it. Keep at all the above until you find stuff that works for you. (None of it is one-size-fits-all.) Talk about it with people who are not paid to talk with you about it. 

Yes, there’s mountains of stigma around mental health. Especially for men. You’re just going to have to get over that. There are lots of reasons not to go get help. Beyond the stigma, for example, there’s the cost (some things aren’t covered by insurance), but addressing your mental health ISN’T OPTIONAL. 

You are one Google search and a brief email away from having a therapist. Fucking get after it, my friend.

-I think I know that positive self-talk is one of the most profound and powerful parts of the healing process. Do this: Make a note of every time you say something mean to yourself over the course of a normal day. I think I know that you’ll be shocked at 1) how often you do that and 2) how cruel you are to yourself. 

Now, imagine you’re saying those exact words to a little kid. (Go ahead, try it.) ...pretty awful, right? You would never say to a child the awful things you say to yourself. But when you do negative self-talk, you’re speaking to YOUR OWN LITTLE-KID SELF. Soooooo stop doing that. Every time you catch yourself doing it, consciously apologize to your little person and say something loving and kind, instead. Seriously. 

-I think I know that being honest with yourself is the second most potent tool for recovery. It’s not easy, and you’ll probably need a professional to help you uncover painful truths. But you can’t heal if you don’t get all the way down, past the bone. Anything short of that, and you’ll be trying to figure out how to rebuild yourself based on false pretenses. Which will lead to failure and more pain, and you’ll have to start over. 

-I think I know that you have to listen to your body. By the time I quit everything, it finally caught up to me how much physical pain I was in every day. My rotator cuff in one shoulder was a mess. I had a three-hole hernia in my abdomen. And I had started having inner ear problems–horrible weekly vertigo spells in which I couldn’t do anything for hours at a time except vomit. 

I had been ignoring all of it, until I couldn’t. 

I rehabbed the rotator cuff. I got hernia surgery. No one knew what was wrong with my inner ear, so they did one billion tests on me over the course of many months and found [DRUMROLLLLLLL!!!!] nothing. Not one goddamn thing. But I was able to reduce my stress, change my diet, and take some supplements to curb the vertigo episodes, and they went away. 

-I think I know that if you try to ignore your body when it’s in pain, it will start screaming louder and louder until it brings you to your knees or lays you out flat. I think I know that’s what my ear thing was about–eventually my stress and exhaustion and everything just spilled over, and my body demanded that I stop and rest. 

-I think I know that sometimes physical pain manifests as mental pain. This sounds like bunkum. It sure sounded like bunkum to me even as I was beginning to suspect it. Then I ran it past my surgeon–the guy who patched up my hernias. He’s not young, and he cuts and stitches up human meat for a living, and he has the bedside manner you’d expect from someone of that description. So when he dryly and matter-of-factly answered my question by saying, “Yes, physical pain can certainly manifest as mental anguish,” I was surprised. And affirmed.    

-I think I know you can’t rush growth. Which sucks. And it’s not always apparent when you are growing/healing or have grown/healed. (That’s one of the reasons you should have a professional involved; they can help you gain crucial objective perspective.) 

-I think I know that you should pay close attention to what you naturally gravitate towards no matter what–like, regardless how tired or broke or broken you are. Do you always find a way to be outdoors? Do you journal compulsively? Maybe you cook or bake. Or start up unnecessary projects, like making a table or knitting someone a scarf. 

For example, in my case, it turns out the Thing I Always Do No Matter What is writing music. During this time in the wilderness, I’d find myself unable to write my little essays, unable to finish reading a book, or whatever… yet songs poured out of me. Why? Dunno. I’m not sure it matters why that is, just that it is.

So whatever that thing is for you, it’s probably the thing you should be doing more of. Maybe it’s your True Calling! Or maybe it’s just something that makes you feel really good. Regardless, make sure to carve out as much time and space as possible for that thing in your life. It’s probably feeding your soul.

-I think I know that there’s not necessarily a clear, objective, this-is-what-you-should-do path. But there are many distractions from your path, and the art of finding your way heavily involves steering away from anything that dishonors yourself.

-I think I know that part of becoming more of who you're supposed to be requires you to remain open. That means you have to be attuned to what's out there and coming towards you, AND you have to create and maintain space for it. Otherwise, you'll either miss it when it comes calling, or you'll hear it but won't be able to do anything with it.

The next chapter for me

So I never found the Big Answer(s), and I never had a Phoenix Moment. I kept wanting at least one of those. I thought if I wrote everything out, I’d sort of find one or the other? That’s often how I puzzle through my thoughts. In fact, I sat down to write this big update more than seven months ago. But I couldn’t do it–it turned into drivel, and I set it aside. I tried again a month later and got nowhere. And I tried again a few months after that. Still bupkis. 

Eventually, I realized my inability to write a wisdom-filled update was due to the fact that I had no wisdom to share. I hadn’t gotten anywhere and didn’t have anything to say. So I’ve written that. 

Broadly, I did (obviously) eventually come to those aforementioned Things I Think I Know. Personally, I’ve been looking for what I want/need to do with myself going forward. I don’t have anything sensational to say about that, either. I would have preferred to do that thing you’re supposed to do and 1) find my true passion and then 2) monetize it. There are lots of things I love to do–outdoor adventures, travel, writing for myself, making music–but making a living off of any of them is not presently in the cards. Maybe someday. 

That’s okay. I’ve long been suspicious of the stereotypical Millennial narrative that media stories seem to always tell about us: I had a great job but was still miserable so I quit to open a food truck and now me and the missus live happily ever after yay. 

But does anyone follow up with these people in like six months, a year, five years? Was the food truck successful? Did they decide that although making less money is fine, making not enough money is unsustainable? And the kids need braces and college, and health insurance is nice to have, and it’s hot inside food trucks.   

That’s not to say people shouldn’t quit their soul-sucking rat-race jobs and do something they find meaningful or enjoyable. And, like, I really enjoy patronizing food trucks. 

But just as the phoenix and butterfly are poor metaphors for what it’s like to burn out and recover, finding a more sustainable work/life/happiness balance doesn’t have to be a neatly cleaved, binary thing. You can pursue your passions while holding down some job. Maybe someday you can even find a way to pursue those passions such that you can make your living from them, if that’s what you want. 

And I think it’s okay if your job is merely a means to an end, so long as it always remembers its place and doesn’t start eating you alive. I think. I don’t actually know. 

For me, after more than a year of (more or less) aimless and sparse freelancing, I’ve taken a full-time job again. It’s well within my skill set, and it seems interesting, and it’s a bit of a career pivot that feels like the right thing to do for me. 

For now, at least. I’ve given up on trying to force the future on myself. What feels right today is sufficient for me.

So. Turns out healing isn’t big and splashy and interesting. The progress is slow and shows up quietly, in small and sometimes unclear or uncertain ways. You just kinda stay with it, do your best to do the things you’re supposed to do to care for yourself, trust the process, and accept that the timeline will unroll more slowly than you wish it would. 

And you start testing out the healed bits. Slowly, gingerly, you find your feet. Then you walk again. Then jog. Then run. Maybe fly. [bird sounds]

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If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this essay, here’s a song about it just for you. Love ya. Enjoy.