The Burnout Diaries: I stopped trying to search for the Answers
... and stopped reading self-help books
After the initial high of quitting my job wore off, I realized two things: 1) quitting didn’t automatically solve my problems and 2) I was, in fact, lost.
And when you’re lost, you want nothing more than to find the Answer(s).
To relieve the pain, anguish, and suffering of not knowing who you are, what you’re doing, or where you’re going. Feeling or being lost is like kryptonite for a high achiever.
You want the Answer — need it — ASAP.
So what do we do? We turn to self-help books from an immense (and intense) place of lack and desperation. We think they’ll be prescriptive; tell us what to do, how to do it, and how to get there (wherever there is).
Because we’re so addicted to doing and being straight-A students, we assign ourselves a huge stack of books. We become voracious readers in search of the Answer, surely hidden in text.
I’ve read countless self-help books, watched dozens of videos, and listened to just as many podcast episodes. I’ve had astrology, human design, and Akashic records readings.
And yet after a couple years, instead of coming out of the woods, I was getting deeper into them.
I love long car rides. They’re a chance for me to listen to my favorite podcast episodes, uninterrupted.
On this particular day, I couldn’t wait to listen to the latest episode of On Being (truly food for the soul). It was an interview with Krista Tippett by Dan Harris of Ten Percent Happier.
During their conversation she spoke about learning to love big open questions instead of rushing to Answers, inspired by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
―Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Letters to a Young Poet”
This way of thinking, of seeing and moving through the world, was revelatory.
It not only made me pause, it made me stop.
Stop chasing.
Stop forcing.
Stop seeking.
In his book, The Creative Companion, David Fowler talks about how an idea is like love.
“The more you need it, the less you can find it. The more desperate your search, the more scarce it becomes. Stop. Settle down and listen to the thing. It will tell you what it wants to be.”
I think the same can be said for the Answers, whether it’s about your career, partnerships, family dynamics, or your sense of place and belonging. The more desperate your search, the more you try to feign control of an outcome, the further away you get.
If you give something some room, it will show you what it wants to be. Even you.
After years of consuming self-help book after self-help book, I decided to stop grasping for the Answers.
I came across a quote recently from Maya Angelou (via Cleo Wade) that says, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”
And that’s the lesson for us: just sing.
Follow your curiosities and joy, no matter how big or small they are. You never know where they’ll lead; and you don’t have to.
When I decided to start living (and loving) the questions instead, timelines started to fall away.
I spend less time hypothesizing, projecting, or guessing the future.
I do more things for fun or just because, not because I’m trying to reach a goal or be productive.
I have a new appreciation for the things that make me me.
What I’ve “found” is a greater sense of self-confidence… and a greater sense of peace.
Edited to add: Immediately after sending this, I had a reiki energy healing session. My reiki healer always pulls a card before our session, and this time she pulled the Moon.
The moon symbolizes feminine energy and intuition.
Her message/interpretation of the Moon card was that we don’t need daylight (the sun) to get direction for where we need to go. We can sit in the darkness/fear and trust that the sun will rise; that the path will be illuminated (!!)
I thought that was pretty incredible coming off the heels of what I shared!
I’ve tried to follow my curiosities much more this year, and it’s led me to some wonderful places. I still struggle with not knowing all the answers, but reading this post reaffirmed that I don’t need to!
No answers or clearly articulated callings, yet, but you’ve probably been able to cut out some of the crappiness you didn’t challenge before. It’s good to have time just to find your feet even though you have no idea for where you’re heading.