“Raise your hands in the air as high as you can,” says the motivational speaker on the stage. Then, looking over the crowd reaching skyward, he says, “Now, reach higher,” and they comply. The lesson? You can always do more, even when you think you’ve done as much as you can.
“I’ll give it 110%,” we say.
“Leave it all on the court,” they tell us.
But pushing ourselves beyond our limits can lead to burnout. When that happens, we can’t function anymore, and that’s not a good thing. And yet, for a cross-cultural worker, being burned out can feel like a respectable reason for leaving the field. I have nothing left to give. I’m spent. I worked too hard.
When my wife and I moved back to the States, I sometimes said it was because we were burned out, and that may very well have been true. But there were other times when I felt I didn’t deserve the label. It seemed that it should be reserved for the ones who’d worked a lot harder than I had.
“It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” we sing.
According to the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, Revision 11, “burn-out” is an “occupational phenomenon” (rather than a medical condition). It is defined as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” showing itself in
- feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion,
- increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and
- reduced professional efficacy
Read more at A Life Overseas. . . .
[photo: “Lights Out,” by Pulpolux !!!, used under a Creative Commons license]
Clearing Customs 