Vicissitudes

on habits and burnout

The habits I have been trying to build are slowly causing me to burn out.

If you've read my previous post, you know that I've been learning Japanese for the past 6 months everyday without fail. This was one of the habits I have decided to pick up near the start of this year. Along with this, I've also been trying to pick up other habits with varying degrees of success, including but not limited to:

If you've noticed by looking at the list, that feels like wayyy too many things to keep up at once. My Japanese routine itself takes around 2 hours since I have somehow convinced myself that I have to spend more time on grammar study and pitch accents in order to become fluent in the language, when I don't even have any need to learn the language at such a deep capacity.

That's not even mentioning time spent at my full-time job or any other life obligations that I have to fulfil. It feels like I'm trying to fit an infinite number of things I want to work on into a 24 hour day. What I've been doing is the equivalent of trying to bake a cake in 5 minutes by setting the oven to 1000oC.

The feeling of being stretched too thin is awful as you can imagine. But the feeling of missing out on other hobbies or opportunities that you want to explore but just don't have enough time or energy to is equally awful. Most days I feel like its a balancing act where I have to make the decision for which habit I'm going to allocate my energy towards, which in itself is an unnecessary expenditure of my energy.

But it's not like all the habits that I've listed above are infeasible to maintain though, as I have consistently performed them for at least 2 weeks at one point this year so I know its possible for a short period at least. However, it might not surprise you that this is a fast track express route towards burnout. Too many things to do in a day easily results in a tightly packed schedule that doesn't leave too much time for relaxation or spending time with loved ones, as well as leaving you mentally and physically exhausted.

However, it feels like if I drop any of the habits that I want to try, that I'll never have the opportunity to pursue them again, since I would be occupied with my other hobbies and wouldn't have the time.

I don't know if I can ever come to terms with the obvious fact that one human can't explore and do everything in a single lifetime. Being 24, I've become somewhat more aware of the remaining time that I have in my life, and as a result I've become more thoughtful of how I spend my time and in turn have been trying to move faster and do more things in hopes of learning and having more experiences within the short time I have on this Earth. This along with the feeling of inadequacy and self-hate that I feel when not working or doing anything "productive", has probably contributed to this unhealthy relationship I currently have with my habits.

Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one.

I've always felt like this quote wasn't entirely true, as surely being a master of a few things was better than a Jack of all trades. With all the habits that I have placed onto myself, it feels like I'm forcing myself to be a "master of all trades", but ended up being a "jack of few trades". So it might seem prudent to drop one or two habits or even re-prioritise and spend less time on habits that I don't enjoy as much. Or I might even take a week off to recover from burnout. Whatever I end up doing, I'm going to make sure that I at least enjoy the process and move towards building a more healthy relationship with my habits.

#habits