The Beauty of Burnout

The headaches. The tinnitus. The extreme fatigue. The lack of energy. The lack of motivation. The avoidance of any bit of positivity. This my friends, is burnout at its peak. The definition of burnout is physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress. Generally, society today is a proud sponsor of burnout. It glorifies busyness, overwork, and "burning the candle at both ends." Falling prey to this mindset, I experienced the negative effects of this firsthand while working tirelessly to get my business off the ground. So how can burnout be beautiful, you say?

Several months ago, I worked 7 days a week and gave myself barely any "me" time. I would wake up early in the morning and make business calls before I went to my "actual" job and would come home only to stay up late continuing to work on the business. After four months of nonstop work, I then cut back to just working 6 days out of the week. But then, I hit a big, brick wall. My emotional and physical health were going down the drain. I just wasn't feeling like myself anymore. Then, one day I heard a song that honestly made me doubt everything that I'd been doing up until that point. The production of that song reminded me of the fact that I'd been running away from my passion and putting it on the back burner for the sake of being practical. But what I didn't expect was that through the experience of burnout, I would also find myself.

For the last year or so I kept putting my music on the back burner in pursuit of something else. My talent to produce music has been there all this time. There was this constant nagging I felt while not pursuing music. It's been consistently the only thing I see myself waking up and doing everyday. All the discouragement I faced from pursuing it in the past for whatever reasons has finally reached a boiling point and I won't live the rest of my life saying "what if?" I'm at that point where I understand NOW is the time.

The beauty of burnout is that there's potential for us to come to our senses about who we are in this world and what our purpose and value are in life. The decline of one's mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health should lead us to take a step back and reevaluate what we're doing and whether or not one is on their right path. The beauty of my burnout is that I rediscovered that burning desire that brings me the most happiness which is creating music. That was there all along! What is that thing that is nagging you to pursue it and what are you doing to follow through with that? Have you experienced burnout? If so, what was the beautiful lesson you ended up learning from it?

Please comment. I'm interested to hear your story.