It’s Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away

I am struck lately by an overwhelming urge to do nothing that I’m supposed to do.  It’s almost ridiculous how far it has extended.  I’m not sure what has caused this ennui, but it is pretty pervasive.  The good thing is that it doesn’t discriminate; it’s not relegated only to work because I don’t want to do any of my chores at home either.  Power bill, schmower bill.  Laundry – what laundry?  When I’m out of socks I’ll do laundry.  Type field reports?  Maybe when the stack gets so unmanageable I have no choice.  I am an equal opportunity slacker.

I think it’s because I spent the entire summer doing things I was supposed to do, things I had no choice but to do.  I didn’t have much time or energy for anything else.  Everyone around me got to go on vacation and I had to hold down the forts.  Now things are less urgent and I’m letting them stack up like cordwood.  It’s the ultimate in procrastination – why put off for tomorrow what you can do the day after!  Instead I’m reading and watching tv and being lay-zee.  I’ve been thinking about going to the gym.  Turns out that thinking about it is hard work enough, actually going would be overkill.

Instead I find myself with a renewed interest in cooking.  I’m getting excited about it and it’s showing in my food because I’m having less epic failures than usual.  I spent most of the summer eating convenience foods and restaurant food.  It didn’t help that I had a huge case of the reverse midas touch – everything I touched either turned to shit or caught on fire!  Now I’m getting my groove back and it’s pretty tasty.

Maybe I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and right now it’s food time.  More likely I just have a huge case of burnout.  I’m not sure what to do about that.  How do you get un-burned-out?  I’d like to say I could go away for a couple of weeks of little or no responsibility and come back all renewed and refreshed, but somehow I don’t think so.   I think this goes deeper than that.  The economy isn’t the only thing that’s shifting!  It’s getting to be time to shake things up around here!