The Spectrum of Moral Injury (MI) to Compassion Fatigue to Burnout (BO) is as complex and dynamic as it comes across the life-work balance spectrum. It is not black and white, but very very grey. MI is extrinsic and systems based dehumanization and corporatization; healthcare now suffers greatly from this insidious and viral disease like never before. The end-station of a journey from short term to midterm to longterm BO is penultimately depression and tragically, increasingly suicide.
The Burnout Spectrum
Most of us live in the messy middle between the bi-poles of BO and MI. Our math and emotion batteries get continually depleted. They need recharging internally and externally as we set aside financial and emotional reserves to ultimately set us free from the rat-race. We can and should ultimately master our money and time and control if and when we choose to battle through our daily minefields. Eventually we must actively “retire” to creative peace and intentionally leave the world a better place than we found it.
Practice Balance
We do not strive to merely survive, but to thrive. We cannot do this alone in our silos, our cubicles. We need help and we need to help. We must give and we must receive. We must be vulnerable and relinquish control at the same time that we must make sense and out of and find manageable patterns in our personal and shared chaos. We must be intimately human and recognize the power of building a healthy tribe. We must stay the course, burn through the “burnout” pain into the messy middle. We must grow and remain resilient and relevant in the conversation of life.
Strawberry Fields Forever
Peace, contentment, and enough are our elusive goals. Let us achieve them together…
