Plain Advice

In my last post I mentioned how I prefer not to deal with today’s dirty dishes tomorrow morning (who does?) This one little statement got me thinking:

One of the major causes of burnout in any area of life is constantly working today to clean up the messes you created yesterday .

Keep in mind that the dish thing, while true, is really just a symbol of some much deeper issues. Because it is so simple to understand though, it will be referenced throughout this article.

First of all, lets define burnout. In searching through several dictionaries, the following seems to capture what each of them say;

Burnout; exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration (Merriam-Webster).

Throughout the various definitions, prolonged stress is consistently referenced as the cause of burnout. So, what is it that cause the “prolonged stress”?

There are many origins for ongoing stress; relationship issues, prolonged illness of self or a loved one, trying to fulfill unrealistic expectations… etc. As a social worker, I have seen many co-workers (myself included) experience burnout; the work is too emotionally draining, not enough time and resources for all that needs to be done (unrealistic expectations), and lack of appropriate boundaries.

And then there is consistent procrastination and the consequences it brings with it.

An extreme example is the case of a long term drug user, who finally decides to enter recovery. The difficulty is two pronged. One side is managing the addiction itself, both physically and psychologically. The other part, which is often the most challenging, is that the person in recovery now has to deal with all the messes he or she created, and effectively avoided by using the drugs. Relationships, physical health, finances, legal issues, etc. are all common messes that the individual now has to face.

Another example is the person who is always in financial crisis. My own credit issues of the past were in large part created due to procrastination… I was not dealing with things when they needed to be handled. As time passed, I found myself living with more and more stress as I was constantly trying to put out financial fires. I would then become burned out from dealing with the crises, and take a break from thinking about it, only to procrastinate more of the things needing to be done. This cycle repeated over and over… All of this would have been avoided had I dealt with my debts as I created them.

If you are suffering from burnout, take a look and see if you are constantly “living in the past”. Are you always trying to clean up your messes from yesterday? What causes long term stress more than constantly putting out fires from days, weeks, and years before?

Unlike many of the other causes of prolonged stress, this is one you actually have control over.

How would it feel to be working on today’s messes today? How would it be to wake up tomorrow with a clean slate, without feeling dragged down by the problems you created in the past?

Living creates messes, and that’s inevitable. Clean them up as you go. Pretending they don’t exist only makes them get bigger. Pretending there are no dirty dishes will never make them go away. And the next time you eat and pretend they aren’t there, the pile will only get bigger.

Do yourself a favor… wash your dishes soon after using them. Remember to clean up all your other messes as you go. You’ll be glad you did.

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Today I went for a run along a river trail near my home. The trees, the running water, the chirping birds… I was enjoying the beauty of nature immensely, along with the satisfaction that comes from hearing myself breathe deeply and feeling my muscles work.

As I went along, I suddenly came along a pile of crap. Literally. Horse crap, I believe. Stinky, smelly, swarming. I tried to ignore it, but couldn’t entirely forget its existence, as I ran around it.

I got back into my rhythm of running, and enjoying my exercise. I was thinking about my plans for the day, making mental lists of things I wanted to get done. I was lost in thought. I went around a corner, and boom, there it was again! And again, again!

OK, so the horse poop I ran across today did not ruin my day, my morning, or even my run. It was a little gross (OK, a lot), but it did get me thinking (as so many things do)

The trail I run on is one that I have been on quite a bit. I know that horses also frequent the trail. Rarely do I run into big piles of poop. Hmmm, I wonder why? I assume that all the horses poop as they go along the trail.

The conclusion I must draw is that most horse owners clean up poop as they go. Today or yesterday, somebody did not take responsibility to clean up after themselves.

One of the huge aspects of taking responsibility is that you clean up the messes you make. You don’t leave them for others to deal with.

This reminds me of something else that happened a few days ago. I was sitting at a stoplight, and all of a sudden my car jolted forward. I had been rear-ended! The light quickly turned green, so I turned left. There was a lot of traffic and it was quite difficult to pull over to the right and get off the road to examine my vehicle. I was also trying to keep my eye on the offending car. I could see it would be easy for them to get lost in the traffic and avoid talking to me.

Happily, the other driver did not try to disappear. She went through the traffic maze to get over to where I had pulled over. She apologized profusely and examined my car with me. I determined that she had only hit my bumper, and my car had not been damaged. She again apologized. She took responsibility for what had happened, and I appreciated that.

So which type of person are you? Do you make messes and then just hope that someone else will fix them for you? Or do you have the integrity to take on the sometimes unpleasant task required to fix the problem?

Today you will undoubtedly create some type of mess. Be responsible… clean it up!

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