burnout, letting go and getting lost
This year has been very interesting so far. The first half absolutely sucked and went by in a second. There was a lot of shit going on at work, leading to me being burnt out and needing to quit the startup I co-founded. It was a forced break.
What followed is pretty interesting. You need to reorient. You need to regain strength. The first four weeks I couldn’t really do anything and got sick again and again. My body needed to rest.
Afterwards, I had to untangle my identity from work. As being a CTO defined my daily life for the last 10 years, I needed to have a bit of a think about who I really am and what I want to do with my life. Nothing groundbreaking, but you have these thoughts and feelings that can finally break through. They were there all along! They just couldn’t break the surface just yet, they needed some pressure.
I came to the realization that what we’re doing as a society is so utterly stupid I can’t put it into words. we grind for some fairytale of “someday” (Retirement or something like that). We just waste so much time and effort on a lifestyle that can’t even keep us alive. 9 to 5 (or longer) is where aliveness and creativity go to die. You loose yourself in your day to day business.
I was always hoping for a big break with these startups. you know, someday we’re gonna make an exit, I’ll finally have time and money for the things I always wanted to do. But I also felt my youth slipping through my hands. 20s spent on anxiety, depression and work. One or two vacations. Never getting lost. Never stayed in a hostel or did anything really. So burnout was the best thing that could happen to me. I was forced to reassess.
I’ve always been very outdoorsy and hated time spent in offices or at home. It makes me anxious. This last decade was spent never knowing what I’m alive for. There was just the distant illusion that that’s gonna change someday. Someday, someone is coming along, changing everything. Or someday, something is going to happen that changes everything.
I can see now how stupid this approach was. So the best thing that could’ve happened to me was the forced break. The burnout.
In the beginning you feel so lost. You just lost all direction, all structure. Days start to blend into each other. You don’t know what to do with all the hours of the day. But slowly, you reconnect with long lost things that you always found interesting. You pick up books, you get in touch with things that were squeezed out of your life by lifestyle that optimized for work.
I picked up “The pathless path” by Paul Millerd. I’m not completely done yet, but so far it held some pretty interesting insights and it gave me some confirmation that I seem to be doing ok, despite having no clue where to go or what’s going on
You’re on the pathless path, when you have no idea where to go next. Unchartered territory. Outside of societal norms, plans. 9 to 5, house, kids, retirement. You need to get lost to find yourself, so to speak.
“That thing the nature of which is totally unknown yo tou is usually what you need to find, and finding is a matter of getting lost”. – Rebecca Solnit
And it is also not something that you can control very much. The essential advice is letting go.
“Less and less do you need to force things until finally, you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering”. – Lao Tzu
Just like the author, I started to strip down my life. Let go of all projects, sold a bunch of stuff to make some money. Got rid of subscriptions, reduced my lifestyle to reduce my cost of living. In Germany you get money when you’re on extended sick leave. But it’s way less than you made before. So I’ll be letting go of my standard of living and my apartment and move into a smaller one. I, just like the author, need to let go of the grip on my future. No idea what comes next. Maybe a bit of “vanlife” in my Defender camper. A bunch of trekking excursions all over the planet. An extended thru-hike. Something like that.
“If it is right, it happens – The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away”. – John Steinbeck.
(The author added: Nothing good gets away, as long as you create the space to let it emerge. I wholeheartedly agree on that one.)
So right now I’m filling my days with selling stuff, doing paperwork, doing a whole lot of nothing and the occasional camping trip. Agreeing to all the things that come my way and feel good. And I think that’s the exact thing that needs doing right now. After a decade always living for the future, I start to learn to live in the now more and more. Building a life that’s not centered on life, but centered on all the things I always wanted to do but never did.
The next step is simple but not easy: embrace uncertainty and see where life takes me. Touring europe in my defender, start my freelancing business, maximize time with friends while on the road, working from here and there. Living a lifestyle somewhere between a drifter, vagabond, dirtbag. Something like that.
So see you on the road I guess.