Activism and Burnout;
How Are You Coping?
After the November election and the defeat of the Citizens Not Politicians ballot initiative, I was determined to spend all of my time trying to protect democracy. I wanted to get going right away on new reforms. I went to rallies. I met with lots of people and generated lots of ideas. Then I realized I was close to burning out.
Here is some important guidance from the book "Rest," by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. We all need to rest. As he observed in the book:
Figures as different as Charles Dickens, Henri Poincare, and Ingmar Bergman, ... all shared a passion for their work, a terrific ambition to succeed, and an almost superhuman capacity to focus. Yet when you look closely at their daily lives, they only spent a few hours a day doing what we would recognize as their most important work.
This is an important insight. Also, studies have shown that the brain at rest is actually doing important work, sorting, pruning, and problem-solving.
Here's my conclusion: spending every waking hour trying to fix our world is counterproductive. It is better to devote some time to work, to pick a few ways to be effective, while also allowing time to rest. More time spent is not necessarily time well spent.
Many of us feel the need to get out and fight, every day and every hour. And yet at the same time we find ourselves depressed and dismayed, frustrated and tired.
What do you think? How have you dealt with balancing activism with rest? I would love to share your observations. We need to be in this for the long haul.
Yours in League,
Joan Savitt
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