on avoiding burnout
Apr 28th
As I start to see everything through an anti-oppression lens, I find myself recognizing more and more that this is a challenging and exhausting view of the world to have adopted. In seeing our struggle as more than just ending suffering or creating more animal-free menu items, we have also had to recognize the myriad problems of classism, racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, speciesism, et. al. that exist. Even more difficult is trying to vocalize the connections between all of these struggles to a majority who don’t recognize the struggle at all or a minority who work so hard already to change the world in their own way.
I have been trying to think about where to draw lines and how to keep ourselves going strong in the face of so much oppression and ignorance. Obviously, in order to continue to put it out there and bring about a vegan world, we must — as people, as activists, as friends, as lovers — keep in mind our own levels of happiness and health when spending so much of our energy working on these exhausting, emotional issues.
Fellow collective member Victor and I have been discussing the heavy disappointment and exhaustion we feel when trying to approach other people with these relatively new ideas and challenging viewpoints. Often, we feel that we hit a brick wall in our conversations in which the content is lost to semantics and nitpicking. We have been told that if we had just said something a little differently, or if we stop being so idealistic, or if we were just a little more reasonable, our words might have rung true. Getting nowhere with these conversations can feel very hopeless and alienating. Obviously, ending oppression and illustrating the intersectionality of these issues is my life’s mission, but for how long will this be sustainable if it feels like the entire world is tuning us out?
How much educating can the oppressed be expected to do for the oppressors?
How many different ways can we share information? How many times can we be expected to rework our arguments and just keep trying when our voices are silenced?
Do any of you have any thoughts or experiences on how best to communicate these ideas and actions without feeling like you’re shouting into a black hole?
about 3 years ago
Yes, here’s how I avoid burnout:
- Limit activism: I leaflet only once or twice a month. If I did it more often, I’d have a hard time keeping a smile on my face.
- Get regular exposure to sunlight: If I don’t get outside every, single day, I will be depressed the next day.
- Find support from family, friends, and/or professionals: I choose to surround myself with vegans and vegetarians. I limit my exposure to nonvegans because they drain my energy.
- Avoid triggers: I can only handle so many violent videos or angry, rich, white, male teenagers.
- Remember that it’s NOT “the entire world”: We don’t change every mind, but we change a few. It might “feel like the entire world is tuning us out” but it’s not.
- Give compliments: I have found that it helps me feel better to help support other activists by leaving friendly comments on their blogs or videos. Sometimes that takes effort (because I’m grumpy sometimes), but it’s worth it.
- Reasoned optimism: I try to find the good in every situation. I consciously try to be hopeful and optimistic. You CAN change your thought patterns for the better. If you find the silver lining, it begins to become what you focus on.
about 3 years ago
Would it be okay for you to post about the kind of situations where you were very disappointed and exhausted? Firstly, talking to and meeting other vegans is a lot of fun and an energy booster. For example, I was really excited after I spent several hours handing out vegan snacks at an anti-war rally full of hungry people from around the country. I ran into a lot of vegans there, to my delightful surprise. One group of people I offered snacks said, “No, thank you. We’re all vegan, so we’ll let you save the snacks for others.” Another time, I invited a vegan bodybuilder to speak on campus, and it was exciting to meet several vegans who came from the area even though the turnout from my university was slim.
I think it helps to do things once in a while that don’t require a lot of psychological effort, that are just fun. Letting go of expectations. Just asking questions, doing anthropology fieldwork on veganism, is interesting and has helped me to break down a wall I had built between myself and non-vegans.
With regard to being idealistic. I was talking with a fellow Zen practitioner yesterday, and he said his parents were both cynical idealists. I have noticed myself become very cynical since going vegan, and I think that’s pretty common among vegans. I don’t really like being cynical. I told this guy that I am an idealist but try to be accepting, and he agreed: as a martial artist he has to accept getting the crap knocked out of him during practice if he wants to improve. You can be an idealist but still accept the world as it is… and know that, heck, someone could blow up the world tomorrow. I’m trying to accept that the world is full of pain and suffering whether I like it or not, and that change will take lifetimes, but here I am.
And I really like Elaine’s comment.
about 3 years ago
Jenna, thanks for this post. This has been an important topic for me, as well.
The most helpful thing I’ve discovered for preventing burnout is (1) to view my life (activism, poem-writing, walking, looking, hugging, etc) as a whole, (2) to focus on infusing my life with love/respect/peace (really embodying the values that I believe in & want to spread), and (3) to radiate that love/respect/peace outward constantly (not just in the bursts I call ‘activism’). This is basically what I wrote about in “Activism as Being, Not Doing.” Looking back, I think I got this view mostly from Victor, as well as from some Buddhist writers (primarily Thich Nhat Hanh).
One big way this plays out is that I don’t focus as much on results, or at least I don’t depend on results for my happiness / my sense that I’m doing what’s right. Because of the lessened focus on results, I feel like it’s a lot easier to keep “putting it out there” in the face of disappointing responses from people. I get regular negative feedback on the L.O.V.E. Myspace–people can be fearlessly aggressive over the internet, haha–but I’ve come to accept that for what it is, responding kindly when appropriate and simply connecting with other, additional people.
You wrote, “How many times can we be expected to rework our arguments and just
keep trying when our voices are silenced?” A key for me has been not to focus on what we’re ‘expected’ to do, but instead focus on what we want to do.
This view has let me stop blaming myself–for not doing enough, for not being effective enough, for not being pure enough. I can accept myself as someone who, every day, honestly tries to embody love and work for a better world. I’m not saying that criticism (including self evaluation) isn’t important, but overall I think it helps to let our activism (and other LOVE-ness) flow out of inspiration more than obligation.
(Not to mention, I think seeing activism as “moral obligation” relies on a metaphor of master and servant. By that view, there’s an ethical code we must obey. The field of ethics is soaked with this — Kant writes about “duty”; Bentham writes that “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure”; countless writers use “should” and “must” to guilt people into action. I guess it’s debatable how important it really is to remove dominance from our metaphors, but I think it makes sense that we’d avoid it if we’re looking at our lives holistically, trying to BE respect, etc.!)
peace and love to everyone alive!
steven
about 3 years ago
Thank you for the post,
the topic is hugely important, so I’d like to throw in my two cents. I feel that veganism plus an anti-oppression outlook of the world (seeing so many things in terms of the oppressor and the oppressed) have been a force in my life able alienate the people closest to me. Not having many vegan friends, I’ve experienced day in and day out a feeling of rejection of the ideas (feelings and attitudes, really) that grow from within me. My last relationship, and the only serious one, fell apart because I was unable to deal with the differrences in our attitudes towards stuff having to do with veganism and oppression. She wanted normal. I wanted to go through life willing to experience the pain of watching others being dominated and abused. The differences and my own general burnout generated psychological tension within me which made it very hard for me to look calmly at simple day to day problems of the relationship. Today, however, I believe I would be able to act differently, having learned a bit from those painful experiences. What does one do when the scene looks this grim?…
I would summarize the few things I think work for me relatively well in terms of minimizing burnout as follows (all of these points could be elaborated upon, but for now I just want to point them out. Oh, and all are deeply interrelated):
1) the kind or quality of effort I make in activism and generally in life is crucial. The more relaxed the effort in all of my activities, the more effective my actions are and the better I feel afterwards. Sorry if it sounds banal, but in my experience the more stressful the circumstance, the harder it is to ‘overcome’ it with sheer force. And the more I feel into the situation IN THE PRESENT, the more I can flow with it, get adjusted to it and work with it. So: relaxed effort.
2) it is important for me to keep in mind that, existentially speaking, the life of every sentient being is fundamentally exposed to suffering of one sort or another. This is the price of living, right? And keeping my guard up all the time gives but an illusion of security while, in fact, impoverishing life, depriving it of experiences to be lived and lessons to be learned. Openness and readiness to be vulnerable and hurt are necessary. This also has to do with relaxed effort made after feeling into the situation, sometimes a painful and frustrating one. So many people run away from their own suffering, and its ingrained in the institutional structures of society so much that it makes me feel like that’s the main theme of our civilisation..But frustration is unavoidable, for the most part and for most people, perhaps. And so maybe it’s best to be willing to experience it and then let go of it, until it reemerges. In my case, I know it will.
3) A couple of you wrote on the merging of activism with our daily, non-activist lives. This is important. I see it as having to do with the fact that activism (veganism) is a natural, unforced expression of who we are, of who I am. Not mediated by abstract moral rules, by a division into activism and non-activism. Straight from the heart. Veganism is what I am. It is what I do. As such, it should not be a burden. But it is..maybe because I’m trying to express myself in a vegan way in a non-vegan society..
4) Also, letting go of expectation can go a long way in terms of avoiding unnecessary frustration. But that is sooo hard, paradoxical perhaps…to make a full (yet maximally relaxed) effort, go into it with my whole heart, and then just let go and see what happens. Whatever happens is fine. I did my best, and because my efforts had been wise and relaxed, I’ll be ok. Not great, but ok.
Thanks
oh, are there any Polish people on here?
about 2 years ago
I liked this..”I don’t focus as much on results, or at least I don’t depend on results for my happiness”. Excellent. Altogether too many preachers are guilty or “quantifying” the responses from a sermon preached. In truth, the most important decisions made are made by a person in the privacy of their own mind and resolve, which may or may not be publically proclaimed. As we approach anyone and inform them of the merits of true Veganism and non-speciesism, we err if we are too disappointed that the new seed doesn’t sprout forth immediately in our presence like Jack’s bean stalk. In all honesty, it really matters not that you ever actually see or meet the person that benefits from the seed you sow. If you are content that each day you lived according to your highest values, that should be enough. An “attaboy!” is always pleasant, but every good meal just doesn’t have to have a dessert following it.