Whence Stress?
Feb. 25th, 2005 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurOkay, so having concluded that stress is at the root of a lot of my current problems, it's worth trying to figure out where that stress is coming from. There seem to be two particularly immediate sources.
Cause number one is simply my schedule, which is too busy. On a typical month, I'm specifically committed two Mondays, three Tuesdays, every Wednesday and every Friday; that's half the month right there. Add into that occasional meetings of other things, plus events/cons/etc on many Saturdays and some Sundays, and I think I'm down to maybe 25% pure home-time. And *that* mostly gets taken up dealing with all the stuff that needs to happen at home, ranging from web maintenance to paying bills to folding my laundry. Subtract out a few too many TV shows, and it's probably not surprising that my pure downtime amounts to about five comic books a week. For even a somewhat borderline I personality like me, that's not enough.
In and of itself, that might be surviveable if I was in good shape. Unfortunately, I started out this academic year essentially pre-burned-out, due to overdoing demo season. The result is that I'm simply not recovering. And it's preventing me from participating in most of the "optional" activities that I'd like to do from time to time, because I'm simply too tired.
Cause number two is Responsibility, which seems to be sort of the potential kinetic energy of Stress: not so much something slamming into me as simply a sense of *weight*. The odd thing is, I'm not actually *doing* all that much with my various responsibilities. My Masonic office takes up one evening a month plus a little occasional homework. Borough Liaison is relatively reactive at this time of year. (Probably shouldn't be, but currently is.) My responsibility for Accademia is mostly just prodding it along. Low Company takes one evening a month and a bit of prep.
Yet all of these are weighing on me disproportionally: the stress seems to arise from the existence of the responsibility, more than from the task itself. Worse, I seem to have a tendency to adopt responsibilities even when they aren't formally my problem. There are lots of examples of this, but probably the best is dance practice, where I've been feeling a very strong necessity to play head cheerleader, simply because somebody's got to do it. (The "somebody's got to do it" meme is intensely powerful in my psyche, and probably deeply connected to the stress problem.)
A particularly nasty result of the responsibility thing is that it tends to cut into my enjoyment of the activities in some especially stupid ways. For instance, consider Low Company. I consistently enjoy running Low Company meetings -- so long as we have at least four people (and we've consistently had more) I can teach and run games, and have a lot of fun doing so. But I spend a totally silly amount of time *worrying* about those meetings in advance, with the result that I wind up dreading the approach of the meeting, despite knowing intellectually that I'm going to have fun. This seems to be applying to most of the aforementioned responsibilities -- I don't even look forward to Dance Practice as much as I would like to, simply because the sense that I *have* to be "on" for it every week gets tiring after a while.
Hmm. Another way of looking at this is that it isn't the activities that are a problem, it's the sense of *commitment* to those activities that is wearing me down. That's probably a key observation -- I enjoy doing all of these things, and I even enjoy leading them. I far less enjoy feeling committed to do so on a regular basis.
Okay, so assuming that those are at least some of the major elements feeding into the stress (I don't kid myself that they're all of it, but they're probably the largest component), the next question is what I can do about it.
A few bits of this are easy, and I've started dealing -- for example, trimming the television list. Life is too short to watch bad TV, and some shows have failed their saving throw. That sounds trivial, but it gains me a couple of hours a week, which is something, and it helps break the feeling that I'm somehow committed to the TV shows. (Which sounds dippy, but seems to be a real mental quirk -- I have a bad habit of letting my entertainment habits become too important to me.)
That said, most of this is *not* easy. There seems to be a core underlying problem, which is that I feel too much sense of responsibility to too many different activities. I need to think about the different activities, and how best to approach each. In some cases the correct answer may be to give up the activity, at least on a regular basis, but that may mean letting the activity collapse in some cases, which is a painful pill to swallow. In other cases, especially the ones where cheerleading is needed, I need to figure out how to delegate that cheerleading, so that I don't feel that I need to do it all myself. (Unfortunately, experience indicates that delegation is the single skill that I am worst at.)
In all cases, I at least need to realign my thinking, to rip the weight of the responsibility out of the otherwise-enjoyable activity. Unfortunately, when I'm this tired it is especially difficult to reconstruct my brain...
Cause number one is simply my schedule, which is too busy. On a typical month, I'm specifically committed two Mondays, three Tuesdays, every Wednesday and every Friday; that's half the month right there. Add into that occasional meetings of other things, plus events/cons/etc on many Saturdays and some Sundays, and I think I'm down to maybe 25% pure home-time. And *that* mostly gets taken up dealing with all the stuff that needs to happen at home, ranging from web maintenance to paying bills to folding my laundry. Subtract out a few too many TV shows, and it's probably not surprising that my pure downtime amounts to about five comic books a week. For even a somewhat borderline I personality like me, that's not enough.
In and of itself, that might be surviveable if I was in good shape. Unfortunately, I started out this academic year essentially pre-burned-out, due to overdoing demo season. The result is that I'm simply not recovering. And it's preventing me from participating in most of the "optional" activities that I'd like to do from time to time, because I'm simply too tired.
Cause number two is Responsibility, which seems to be sort of the potential kinetic energy of Stress: not so much something slamming into me as simply a sense of *weight*. The odd thing is, I'm not actually *doing* all that much with my various responsibilities. My Masonic office takes up one evening a month plus a little occasional homework. Borough Liaison is relatively reactive at this time of year. (Probably shouldn't be, but currently is.) My responsibility for Accademia is mostly just prodding it along. Low Company takes one evening a month and a bit of prep.
Yet all of these are weighing on me disproportionally: the stress seems to arise from the existence of the responsibility, more than from the task itself. Worse, I seem to have a tendency to adopt responsibilities even when they aren't formally my problem. There are lots of examples of this, but probably the best is dance practice, where I've been feeling a very strong necessity to play head cheerleader, simply because somebody's got to do it. (The "somebody's got to do it" meme is intensely powerful in my psyche, and probably deeply connected to the stress problem.)
A particularly nasty result of the responsibility thing is that it tends to cut into my enjoyment of the activities in some especially stupid ways. For instance, consider Low Company. I consistently enjoy running Low Company meetings -- so long as we have at least four people (and we've consistently had more) I can teach and run games, and have a lot of fun doing so. But I spend a totally silly amount of time *worrying* about those meetings in advance, with the result that I wind up dreading the approach of the meeting, despite knowing intellectually that I'm going to have fun. This seems to be applying to most of the aforementioned responsibilities -- I don't even look forward to Dance Practice as much as I would like to, simply because the sense that I *have* to be "on" for it every week gets tiring after a while.
Hmm. Another way of looking at this is that it isn't the activities that are a problem, it's the sense of *commitment* to those activities that is wearing me down. That's probably a key observation -- I enjoy doing all of these things, and I even enjoy leading them. I far less enjoy feeling committed to do so on a regular basis.
Okay, so assuming that those are at least some of the major elements feeding into the stress (I don't kid myself that they're all of it, but they're probably the largest component), the next question is what I can do about it.
A few bits of this are easy, and I've started dealing -- for example, trimming the television list. Life is too short to watch bad TV, and some shows have failed their saving throw. That sounds trivial, but it gains me a couple of hours a week, which is something, and it helps break the feeling that I'm somehow committed to the TV shows. (Which sounds dippy, but seems to be a real mental quirk -- I have a bad habit of letting my entertainment habits become too important to me.)
That said, most of this is *not* easy. There seems to be a core underlying problem, which is that I feel too much sense of responsibility to too many different activities. I need to think about the different activities, and how best to approach each. In some cases the correct answer may be to give up the activity, at least on a regular basis, but that may mean letting the activity collapse in some cases, which is a painful pill to swallow. In other cases, especially the ones where cheerleading is needed, I need to figure out how to delegate that cheerleading, so that I don't feel that I need to do it all myself. (Unfortunately, experience indicates that delegation is the single skill that I am worst at.)
In all cases, I at least need to realign my thinking, to rip the weight of the responsibility out of the otherwise-enjoyable activity. Unfortunately, when I'm this tired it is especially difficult to reconstruct my brain...
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-25 06:36 pm (UTC)I will (and have been) take on my own share of cheerleading at dance practice. I am only one person, as are you, but I will do what I can - as long as you promise to me that you will remember that you are not singlehandedly responsible for the Fun Of The Entire Universe.
As for Accademia.... I can take most of that on, too, if it'll make you feel better. I've been helping carry it for a little while; as long as either you can bring the music or point me towards someone else who can, I might be able to handle the rest. I've been hiding from responsibility for a while, I guess, and it's time for me to bludgeon that fear into submission.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-25 09:51 pm (UTC)In all seriousness -- probably, yes. Just don't take more than you can handle yourself: you have your own stresses to deal with, and I'd wind up feeling horribly guilty if you overloaded yourself taking some of mine.
Let's talk about this more f2f, probably next week...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-25 07:16 pm (UTC)Actually, it sounds as if even Dance Practice could fall into that description. You want to enjoy it, so it's become important to you, so important that you can't enjoy it.
I think you're right. Here's a hypothesis to think about: you need step away from some of your
jobsactivities. If those activities have a genuine, er, fan base, then someone else will step into the void. If nobody does, then those activities are basically parasitic on you; other people may enjoy them, but not enough to contribute.A Vorkosigan quote: "The measure of a great man is the great men he leaves behind him, to whom he's passed on his skills." (Cordelia to Illyan, in Mirror Dance. Accuracy not guaranteed.) You've been an engine of Carolingia for, what, twenty years? You're entitled to decide you've had enough, and let someone else carry the load for a while.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-25 10:03 pm (UTC)Yes, I think that's a fair comment. And it's damned frustrating, because I *do* both enjoy and need dance practice (it's my most central social outlet), but the sense of being *committed* to it eats into that fun. (This is, note, why I can only stand being dancemaster for a limited period of time. I love teaching dance more than almost any other activity, but the sense of *having* to do so just wrecks me gradually.)
I suspect that what I need there is to be able to inculcate in myself a sense that the world won't fall apart if I'm not there playing rah-rah. I'm semi-confident about that intellectually (and would be moreso if a few more people would take up the cheerleading role actively), but it's a bit tricky driving that home.
The comment about needing to step back is also probably correct. The main trick there is that I can't be entirely Darwinian about some of those activities: in many cases, the activity itself is intertwined with other priorities in my life. For example, it would be easier for me to step back slightly from Low Company if it wasn't so crucially supporting the rump of Duncharloch right now: without that focus, I think the borough would dissolve entirely. I may decide that I have to let that happen, but it's hard to get past the feeling of letting people down if it does. (The right solution, of course, is to help the borough achieve a healthier sense of self-identity, but so far I haven't cracked that particular nut.)
You're entitled to decide you've had enough, and let someone else carry the load for a while.
Oh, intellectually I know that. But it doesn't change the fact that the process of letting go may have immediate negative side-effects. I either need to accept those, or find ways to mitigate them...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-25 11:00 pm (UTC)That said, I won't be there the next two weeks, because other things have come up.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-26 12:04 am (UTC)It doesn't really require siphoning off -- these things tend to be more a reflection of collective mood and attitude than anything else. It's prone to feedback loops, with both upspirals and downspirals, and at the moment I think there's a bit of the latter. I do think that the out-in-the-hall thing has gotten a bit out of control, which is hurting it somewhat, though...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-28 05:43 pm (UTC)The out-in-the-hall does seem to be spiraling out of control. I know there are some people, especially Mara, who prefer that if people aren't going to dance that they not be in the dance room causing a ruckus. And judging from the screams and laughter I've heard all the way from the dance room, it would be extremely distracting to have that in the room. At the same time, having a physical divide essentially forces people to have to choose between socializing/chatting and dancing. And it's harder to drag people up to dance if they're off down a hallway instead of over in the corner.
Unfortunately, I have no idea how to remedy this. Better cheerleading and a higher fun quotient is part of the issue, but there are also a growing number of people who don't come to dance to dance (and let's face it, I am one of the worst offenders in that department) and I don't know what to do about that.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-26 07:30 pm (UTC)Or you need to reconcile yourself to the world falling apart.
Personally, I don't find it worth while to try to override my sense of what my role is in various activities, because the part of me is usually right. :) The question is then how do you deal with that fact that something may collapse without you?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-26 08:02 pm (UTC)-- Will this activity collapse without me?
-- Am I willing to *let* this activity collapse, if so?
-- How do I disengage my ego to the point of being able to cope with that collapse?
All of this is really more germane to the Low Company/Duncharloch question than to Dance Practice. Intellectually, I know that the latter isn't going to simply blow away if I step back from the cheerleading a bit; I'm just a bit irrationally over-invested there. The former, OTOH, might, so these questions become very relevant...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-25 09:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-26 06:14 am (UTC)What follows is merely a thought, to take or leave as you wish; you obviously have a much better grasp of your life and your internal psychology than I do. :)
Perhaps, at least for a little while, deliberately stay home from one dance practice per month? Partly because it would provide concrete feedback of "just because you aren't there doesn't mean it's all going to blow up / fall apart"; partly because not having to go every time might make it more fun when you do(*) - and if you miss it when you're not going, perhaps some of that will carry over into the next week and you'll be glad to be back. (The 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' theory, which I've never liked the phrasing of, but there's truth in the 'sometimes missing something provides a visceral reminder of how much one cares for it' angle of it at any rate.)
Oh, and it'd also give you a free evening once per month, which might help in other ways.
(*) = on the theory that having (Fun!) 3-4 times/month is probably better than having (Stress! + Fun!) 4-5 times/month, unless Stress! is quite low, which it sounds like it isn't.
maybe the hours are long
Date: 2005-02-27 04:31 pm (UTC)Just a note from a friend who's asking similar questions. YMMV.
Re: maybe the hours are long
Date: 2005-02-28 01:38 am (UTC)I've never hidden this from them, either: I focus carefully, plan my time, keep them thoroughly informed about what my schedule is going to be, and try pretty hard to stick to that schedule. They seem to be pretty content with that -- so long as I keep them carefully apprised in advance, and get the job done, they don't pressure me to pull especially long hours.
That isn't to say that work doesn't feed into the stress: the inherent uncertainty of life at a startup is surely a component, especially the way that my focus necessarily shifts unexpectedly on a regular basis. But I honestly don't think it's nearly as big an element as much of the rest...