#ADULTING, Part 3: On Burnout

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? (Matthew 16:26, NLT)

As I've said before in the last few posts in the #ADULTING series, I wrote this series as a means of self-analysis, in order to regroup after a lackluster first semester of second year. I had many problems in December: I ate like crap, I didn't adhere to my morning routine or night routine, I spent way too many nights cooped up on my bed instead of being productive or even doing things I like (like exploring places and seeing friends). And part of the process of making sure that I didn't eat like crap or violate my morning routine this semester was to write the vision of what I wanted my diet or exercise or general self-discipline to look like, and then to make it plain (via the blog). But that didn't solve all of my problems. Last semester, I wrote out goals for the block each semester and put them on my door. I knew what I was supposed to be doing, and I knew why I was supposed to be doing it, but I just...didn't do it. I didn't feel like doing it. I could motivate myself to do just enough to pass all of my tests and honestly not much more. I figured it was just due to my general laziness.

When I was young, I honestly preferred cartoons, video games, social media, sports--really anything--to actual homework. Thank God, I had parents who pushed me to do my best and focus on my studies. My parents were the ones always getting me up and ready and pushing me to do everything and nothing less. That impetus, along with (some) intelligence, got me into college. College was the first time that I had to find motivation to work on my own. And to be honest, that was hard! I had been used to getting good grades without working super hard to get them, and when I'd flagged, my parents had always been there to push me. But that situation became untenable after a while--I had to find motivation and fast.

In the middle of college I hit rock bottom. I was deeply depressed and thought I'd lost myself. But then somehow, I got a hold of God and his Word, and he pulled me out of my abyss. I spent the rest of college in catch-up mode, regaining what I should've had freshman and sophomore year. My grades skyrocketed as I learned to apply myself for the first time. During my senior year, one of the academic highs of my life was studying for the MCAT. I knew that I had to do well because I didn't have the academic record to carry me through medical school. For a month, I studied from 10am to 12pm with 15-minute breaks for lunch and dinner, every single day, without getting distracted. To this day, I look back at myself during that period and wonder, "WHO IS SHE?" I proceeded to smash that test and the rest of senior year. By then I thought I had the work ethic thing down. But the problem with work is that you have to keep doing it.

My first year of medical school was kind of a continuation of senior year of college. Despite the gap year I took, I still had my college mentality of "catch-up time", and I worked very hard. As time went on though, I got tired, and I realized that I didn't need to do as much as I was doing in order to pass my tests. I had the same mentality that I'd had senior year: "you HAVE to do well! You weren't brought this far just to barely get by! You have to do the best you can, or else you've wasted everyone's time!" But as 2018 wore on, I became less and less capable of living up to those expectations. With every month I seemed to be "getting worse"--getting distracted more often, sleeping off earlier, not working as hard. I knew I was tired, but I also saw it as myself getting lazy again, just like I'd been in high school and early college.

I had a two-month summer break that was very restful. Then med school started again, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I attributed it to a summer hangover...a summer hangover that lasted for two months. I knew I had to work, but I just wanted to rest...like, all the time. I didn't really take interest in the material like I had first year; a lot of it seemed boring to me. And it wasn't just academic either. Despite everything I learned in the summer about making friends (see the post "No New Friends"), I hardly ever made plans to see any friends; it just felt like too much effort in comparison to sitting in bed and watching Netflix. I did not like my extracurriculars at all; whenever I had to do something for my clubs, it always came as a surprise, like, "oh GOODNESS, I have to do yet another thing for this club?" It felt a lot of times like I was being dragged along by life. There was a bright spot in the middle of the semester, right after my two-month "summer hangover", where I hit a block of material that was interesting to me, I was motivated to get out of my "summer hangover", and I also had the good sense to plan a weekend trip for myself. That block went well, but after that, I sank right back into the abyss until Winter Break freed me from my troubles.

All the while, I never thought that it could be burnout. Burnout, I thought, only happened to actually hardworking people. Burnout happened to the people who studied until 1am every night and did seven extracurriculars and were going for AOA, all at the same time. Burnout, I thought, could never happen to lazy old me--I liked watching YouTube and Netflix. I actually slept every night. How could I get burned out? But as I was writing and self-analyzing this past January, I looked up the definition of burnout, and found this:

Burnout is one of those road hazards in life that high-achievers really should be keeping a close eye out for, but sadly—often because of their "I can do everything" personalities—they rarely see it coming. Because high-achievers are often so passionate about what they do, they tend to ignore the fact that they're working exceptionally long hours, taking on exceedingly heavy work loads, and putting enormous pressure on themselves to excel—all of which make them ripe for burnout.

Burnout is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism and detachment [and] feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment...

(from Psychology Today, bolding mine)

Though I didn't suffer everything that the article said (thank God!), I saw myself in a lot of the words said merely in those two paragraphs. I couldn't believe it--I, Simi, lover of cartoons and video games and sports, had actually pushed myself hard enough to burn out. And I had suffered a whole year without even knowing it. I soon realized that I was far from alone. Apparently, my generation suffers from burnout in so many ways that people, starting with BuzzFeed News, have dubbed millennials "The Burnout Generation".

Essentially, the BuzzFeed News article argues burnout is "the millennial condition". Rich or poor, regardless of race and social class, many millennials have been raised in some way to be the optimal worker. In high school we take AP classes and do internships (at least in some high schools...I never did one); in college we do more internships and take on lots of extracurriculars and do research and take classes; we go on to grad school in order to make ourselves even more optimal for the workplace. And in the end, if we don't get stable jobs, we take on everything we can to "make it work". The article states:

People patching together a retail job with unpredictable scheduling while driving Uber and arranging child care have burnout. Startup workers with fancy catered lunches, free laundry service, and 70-minute commutes have burnout. Academics teaching four adjunct classes and surviving on food stamps while trying to publish research in one last attempt at snagging a tenure-track job have burnout. Freelance graphic artists operating on their own schedule without health care or paid time off have burnout.

And I can add with certainty that despite the comparative job stability, medical workers (doctors, nurses, MAs, medical students, residents) absolutely get burnout as well. 

The American Psychiatry Association estimated that between 300 and 400 doctors commit suicide every year. It's not the highest suicide rate (apparently that belongs to farmers!?), but it does mean that one doctor commits suicide every day. And coming from a person in the profession, it's not exactly hard to figure out why. In high school, you work your tail off to get the best grades in order to get into the best college. In college, you work even harder to do well in premed classes and get good research and get the best extracurriculars in order to get into medical school. In medical school you study mountains of material in order to pass your test (or get the highest grades if your school isn't pass/fail) and then restudy those mountains in order to get the best score on Step 1. Then you go into rotations (with a Step 2 exam) and that melts into residency, with 16-hour workdays and twice-weekly call where you work for 24-48 hours without leaving the hospital (at its worst--it gets better) for at least three years. And somehow, in there, it is expected that we will never suffer from burnout or feel detached from our work or wonder what the point of it all is, at any time. Yeah, right.

And yet for every doctor who does burn out or ends his or her life, there are thousands more who have gotten through all of the above and have continued into their careers with at least some degree of happiness. Medicine is an extremely rewarding career, and there is a way to do all of the above without losing yourself in the process, or else no one would do it. I am determined to do it that way. I can't afford to be burning out in medical school when I have at least five years left until I become a board-certified doctor, and a whole lot of life to live beyond that (by God's grace). Obviously, I need to work hard and do my best, but I need to do my best in a way that is sustainable. It's better to work at about 80% capacity and be able to keep that up for several years than to work at 100% capacity for one year and burn out the next year. Burnout and recovery from burnout takes a lot of time that I don't have anymore.


The United States National Suicide Prevention Hotline can help in times of crisis if you call 1(800)-273-8255.

#ADULTING, part 2: How To Handle Social Media

I originally wrote most of the #ADULTING series during Winter Break. But in typical me fashion, I decided to unload my thoughts on social media today, and I figured that it fit into the series. Enjoy!

When we millennials were young, social media was completely new. It represented the great frontier of technology, a place where we could communicate and get to know each other on a whole new level. A decade and a half later, it appears to have woven itself into the general disillusionment of our age. There are many, many articles about the pitfalls and evils of social media, and yet platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are still growing. With social media becoming a fixture of modern life, is there anything we can do to use it in a way that is enjoyable and edifying? People can and have written whole papers and theses on this; I am not one of those people. However, I do have three tips that might help if you keep reading.

Tip # 1: Use social media to ACTUALLY connect with people

The best thing about social media for me has been connecting with people who I wouldn’t be able to contact as much if it didn’t exist. For example, I’m Nigerian-American, and a decent proportion (read: practically ALL) of my extended family lives abroad. In particular, I have three cousins around my age who grew up in Nigeria and who I literally did not meet in the flesh until about 1-3 years ago. But before I met them, I had contacted them and I knew a bit about them. You know how? (..other than my Nigerian parents telling me about their school progress to er, motivate me?) Social media! I followed my cousins on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram long before I met them; in that way, I could at least get a sense of who they were and what they liked, and even chat with them as time passed. 

I also have seven cousins who grew up in London. Just this past summer, I started a group chat on Facebook with three of them about the World Cup. It was so much fun being able to connect with them over an interest that we all share, and Messenger made it easy to contact them at literally a drop of the hat.

I believe that social media is at its most enjoyable when it is used to connect with people. I suggest using it when you want to communicate with people, not just when you want to stalk their profiles. If your friend’s Instagram story inspires you, reply to their story and tell them! If you find a funny video, share it with a friend so you can both laugh at it. If you love a photo or a post from a friend, double tap AND leave a nice comment for your friend to reply to. Start group chats with friends about common interests, whether it’s soccer or The Bachelor. Isn’t that what social media was supposed to be about in the first place?

Tip # 2: Protect your feed

One of the major complaints I hear about social media is that it constantly puts us in a position to compare ourselves with other people, leading to insecurity. In the Passion Translation, Proverbs 4:23 says “Guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being…” When you look at the social media accounts of people who portray perfection, on purpose or on accident, and when you spend time comparing yourself to them, it hurts you at your innermost being by making you insecure about who you are. That insecurity, as harmless as it seems, affects your thoughts, your actions, your interests—everything that you are, because you feel like you have to live up to a standard that wasn’t made for you and that may not even be achievable. I have a simple solution for this: you ain’t gotta follow those “perfect” people! Many of them are influencers and/or celebrities who have enough followers that they won’t notice if you unfollow them. And if it IS someone you know? You’ll probably be a better friend to that person if you are not constantly comparing yourself to them. You are a better friend to other people when your soul is secure; protect your soul.

Another thing that can be agitating: if you follow politics and current events to the extent that it continually puts your soul in a state of hurt, anger and/or depression. Please hear me out on this. It is good to be civically involved. It is good to defend causes that you are passionate about. But if it is hurting your emotional and spiritual state more than it is helping or changing anything, you may need to cut back for a bit! 

There is a popular philosophy out there right now that says, “you can’t do everything, but you MUST DO SOMETHING.” Essentially, it means that if you don’t add your voice to things, then nothing will be accomplished. I…only sort of believe this. Yes, every person has a sphere of influence. If you agree with something and make that clear, the people in your sphere of influence are much more likely to take your words seriously than they would take the words of some politician or celebrity who has nothing to do with them personally. And there are some issues where previously we have expected some sweeping law or some nice quotes from a famous person to fix it, when in reality nothing gets fixed unless we actively try to fix it. (One of those issues is racism.) 

BUT…do I feel that I have to have something to say about…every issue…that goes on? Not really, no. Honestly, a lot of times, when some big company comes up or some celebrity does something wrong, I feel there are enough people making comments about it…and posting similar opinions to mine about it…that if I add my opinion, it’s merely another identical voice in everyone else’s chorus, and it does nothing to add to the conversation. It just starts fights on my feed and makes ME upset. iI don’t know about you, but for my emotions’ sake, I can't afford to let every issue or insult or event in the media get to me. I've found that some issues or events are big enough that everyone else will be upset for me!!! In those cases, where I know that looking up that event will do nothing but upset me, I refrain from getting into the conversation. That way, I can keep my joy and focus on what I’m created to do rather than focus on every single thing that’s happening in the world. I am not God, and I cannot deal with every single tragedy that goes on every day. Sometimes I simply have to hand it over to him and move on!!!

I’m not saying that you should close yourself off to the world around you or put yourself in an echo chamber. But it’s no secret that what we look at on social media affects us mentally, emotionally and sometimes even spiritually. If your feed is yours to control, why don’t you follow accounts that inspire you, lift you up and make you feel better? It can only help you.

Tip # 3: Limit your time on social media

Even at its best, social media can be quite a big time-waster. A success coach i listen to, Terri Savelle Foy, once described TV as “watching other people live their dreams”. I think I would include social media in this category as well, except often it’s watching people pretending to live their dreams. In both cases, there is a point where it becomes less productive to spend time watching other people live out their stories than to live out your story. There is value in watching other people live out their stories; it provides inspiration and connection. But the only story you get to live out is yours. Don’t spend your entire time looking at other people’s lives while yours passes you by.

There is also value in living life as it is, uncurated and unfiltered. If you’re at a concert, do you really need to Snapchat every single moment? You spent your own money to be there in the flesh and enjoy your favorite artist; take time to enjoy that concert for yourself, and sing at the top of your lungs. If you’re out with your friends, it’s great to take photos in order to preserve memories, but it’s even better to spend time with your friends and create memories so good that you don’t need a photo to remember them.

The best way I’ve found for limiting social media time? Delete the app off your phone, and download it back from the app store when you want to take a look. Your account will still be there for you when you come back, and in this way you can resist temptation to look when you shouldn’t be looking.

iOS 12 also has this wonderful app called Screen Time, which allows you to set limits on how long you use apps. The only problem is that you can always extend your limit 15 minutes more, meaning that the temptation is always there.

Hope this helped somebody!