Until Someone Burns Out or has a Breakdown

Jon Acuff, the guy from Stuff Christians Like, put an audio version of his book Quitter on NoiseTrade this week.

You can get it here for FREE: http://noisetrade.com/jonacuff/quitter-audio-book.

When I saw this book on NoiseTrade and downloaded it yesterday, I thought listening to it might give me permission to be a quitter. It turns out the first chapter is called "Don't Quit Your Day Job," so I guess not... It is helping me work through the mess in my mind a little bit, though. 

Here's a part from chapter 3 I listened to over and over tonight to be able to transcribe some of what he's saying that's so true about me:

"That's the lie of perfectionism: We never think perfect is impossible. Perfect always glows from right around the corner... I'm afraid the Land of Perfect is a myth... You struggle with perfectionism more than doing things halfheartedly. The solution to doing something lackadaisically is not difficult: just do it better. The solution to perfectionism is tricky because at first it doesn't feel like something that needs to be solved... People don't normally see it as the poison that it is until someone burns out or has a breakdown."

"Quit perfect. It's an unnecessary obstacle. Chase the idea of your dream being better finished at 90% than perfect and not pursued."

Right now, I have a six page and growing conversation with myself open in a Pages document going through the ups and downs of my dreams and my reality, trying to sort it all out. I don't know what the conclusion is going to be. I don't even know what I hope it will be. I just know I want to be happy and joyful and at peace with how I'm spending my gifts and my time.

I'm not sure what dream I need to pursue, not sure if my day job could be dream job if I could ever truly let go of my desire for perfection and be okay with 90% (or much less, let's be honest) at school. 

Or if there's something else. Some other dream job around the corner if I'd just be brave enough to chase it down and brave enough to quit.

What I do know is that if I'm not in the "burns out or has a breakdown" category yet, I've gotta be on the fast track toward it.

John Mayer, in "Bigger than my Body," as always, puts the cry in my heart in a way that is perfect-- "I'll gladly go down in a flame if a flame's what it takes to remember name, to remember my name!" 

Teacher burnout is not a new concept. My elementary school teachers warned me as early as 8th grade about teaching and what it was becoming, told me that they were glad to be able to retire when they did. That was over ten years ago. In college, we talked plenty about the things that burn teachers out, and we also often talked about "burned out teachers," those near-retirement types, with such disdain, with the idealism that we would never be them. Who knew I'd be there in under four years, well before hitting 30 years old? I always thought I'd be like the John Mayer song-- glad to go down in a flame.

I've always loved shout-singing the chorus of this song alone in my car, especially with the windows down, loved telling myself, "Someday I'll be so damn much more! 'Cause I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for." (Emphasis on the damn intended because somehow, it just gives it so much more -umph and, I don't know, desperation for it? Desperation to make it, to go down in flames, whatever it takes to do something that you could know in the end was worth it.)

So anyway... what am I talking about?

I'm talking about John's questions--

"Why is it not my time?
What is there more to learn?"

Why am I not there? Why is life not a dream come true every moment? Why haven't I achieved perfection yet? What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?

And the question I have now is--

What am I flaming out for?*

Am I letting the fact that I haven't achieved perfection drive me to "tangle in the power lines," as JM puts it?**

What am I going to lose if I burn out or have a breakdown? Will the burn out, the flames, be worth it?

And how do I prevent going down in flames? Accept the less-than-perfect job I'm doing at my less-than-perfect-job and realize it's what I'm made to do at 85% mastery forever and just relax? I'll be honest-- I don't know that I can ever do that. I don't know if I could do that if I prayed the Serenity Prayer before and after every class period. I am highly affected by what I cannot change, broken by it, engulfed in its flames. 

So do I step outside of this particular fire (Insert Garth Brooks music here.) and go for another one that might be the real dream after all? Is it possible to do something that I actually love every day and actually see enough success and change happen to keep me from wanting to quit every single day?

Alright, I'm going to go back to my Pages conversation with myself... or maybe I'll listen to Quitter some more since the next chapter is called "Fall in Like with a Job You Don't Love" and clean the bathroom or something more productive like that.


* I am an English teacher who just can't bring herself to edit that to be "For what am I flaming out?"

** I'm now making my own meaning out of this song, but that's ok. I think JM would support that.