As much as I love a job where I get to feel like I'm making a difference in the world, it's also really exhausting. Each bad policy or funding cut or snub from a nay-sayer takes a toll on what used to feel like an endless supply of passion and energy for creating long-term systemic change for the betterment of all people. My, how lofty. Now I just want to read Jezebel and work from home in my pajamas.
That's the danger, right? I feel my sense of impact drifting away, wondering if what I am doing is really doing any good when all I see are forces larger than myself no longer chipping but hammering away at the values I try to uphold in my life and work.
As outraged as I was at the goings on in North Carolina and Texas and Ohio, I couldn't muster up the energy to go stand as an act of protest. I felt defeated, deflated. I still do. I won't even go into the hate-filled gibberish plastered all over my Facebook feed after Saturday night. I don't have the energy to argue. I want peace.
And yet, isn't it my privilege that allows me to choose when to turn it off, tune it out? The guilt of that is crushing...and defeating...and deflating.
I need some light and love. And to stop feeling sorry for myself! And watch John Legend sing.
I just read that a study showed that the root of happiness is gratitude, and some of that is made possible by tuning out negativity. Don't feel guilty for tuning it out when you need & want. You do what you can (probably a lot more than most people) and a happier you contributes more than you might realize.
ReplyDeleteHere's an article supporting tuning out without guilt:
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/What-to-Do-When-Youre-Burned-Out-Consequences-of-Stress
Yay John Legend!