I definitely hit a wall in the past month or so that’s become noticeable by some of my friends and family. I feel tired all the time. And not physically tired: I’ll get up, and go to the gym and such; I am physically fine in that respect. I’m just feeling stressed and mentally exhausted. I guess it’s burnout, again.
I do think a lot of it has to do with my vision problem and figuring out, still, how to live my life and further my career in this new-ish reality for me, and it being incredibly frustrating to deal with daily. Some of it though, has to do with my willingness and ability to devote myself to “the hustle” and the culture of digital media rapidly eroding. Both of those issues converging leaves me in a weird place. I don’t yet know what to do about it though. I still have the drive to create but the 24/7 rapid response culture of digital media and promotion takes way more out of me than I get from it these days.
I want to take some time this summer to figure out how to break that cycle. I know a lot of it what I plan is not doing extraneous “face-time” stuff like conferences and such. I definitely want to spend a lot more time offline, trying to get off the digital media hustle wheel and figure out what that would even look like for my future. I’ll always love writing, and I am super passionate about teaching, but who knows. Digital is draining; I’m actually more comfortable with not knowing what’s next than knowing my current career trajectory is my future.
I dunno if I’ll share some of that reflection here or not, I might. It’s comfortable here, on this blog, it’s got a fun 2006 flavor to it, but I may keep it offline and emerge like a butterfly or some shit.
Keidra Chaney 