I Never Really Recovered From Burning Out

A reflection on the non-linear path towards figuring shit out.

Credits: Dall-E

As far as my career goes, I've always been a hustler. Or at least this is how I remember it.

My first job out of junior college was as a guitar teacher. This was despite having close to 0 musical knowledge or training.

Mesmerised by a lot of the progressive and instrumental rock I was listening to, I picked up the instrument, started learning and memorising scales in every key, and became obsessed with silly yet flashy finger exercises.

In my naïveté, I believed this was what it meant to play music. I signed up for an account on Soft to peddle my services, and soon learnt it's not about what you're hoping to sell, but what people are willing to buy. I picked up a few students—all of whom didn't care about music and only wanted to play fast—and I was in business.

Soon after, I added English and General Paper tuition to my repertoire. When I completed NS, I became a part-time barista, and started taking on freelance writing clients.

At one point, I was juggling a total of 4 jobs. All while studying for my undergrad degree.

By the time I graduated, I was tired. Most people don't know this, but I was also looking to take a break from writing, the job that paid the best but—no surprise—was also the most soul-sucking.

Then an opportunity came along to join Rice Media as co-founder and its first writer, and I thought, why the hell not? It sounded like an amazing opportunity.

I dove in head-first. Before I knew it, I was churning out 5-6 full length feature stories a week. As a publication, we were still looking for our voice, so it was important that we kept trying new things and publishing.

It was relentless, but I loved it.

One evening, sometime towards the end of 2017, I was on the way to meet a subject for a story when I was hit by a brick wall of anxiety. I felt light headed, had trouble breathing, and it was as though my chest was caving in. Eventually I arrived at BK Eating House, ordered a bottle of Tiger, and only managed to finish about half of it because it made me want to puke.

Sitting there at 8 PM on a weekday evening, I had never felt so wrung out. I was exhausted, about to do my third interview of the day, with impending deadlines breathing down my neck. Rice was still just me and one other person at the time, and all I could ask myself was, "Why am I doing this? What's the fucking point?"

Then my interviewee arrived, and I switched to work mode. I managed a good night's sleep afterwards, and soon forgot about the anxiety attack. But this was just the beginning.

In the 2-3 years that followed, Rice would begin to really take off. We continued to land what often seemed like impossible stories, raised money, took on more and more advertising clients, and the team eventually grew to around 30 in total headcount. Once a writer in a team of 2, I was suddenly running operations and managing people, none of which I had ever done before.

Throughout this entire time, my energy and my sanity would ebb and flow, and I would swing between bursts of productivity and periods of extreme jadedness. Truthfully, I was on autopilot through a lot of it—doing nearly everything by instinct, and spending most of my free time trying to numb or distract myself from how overwhelmed I constantly felt.

Much has been written about burnout, from what causes it to how to overcome it. In my own experience, recovering from burnout has been less about getting enough rest, and more about rediscovering a sense of purpose.

While I still believed in what Rice was trying to accomplish, I had started to really question whether it was still the right path for me.

Towards the end of my tenure at Rice, what kept me going was no longer chasing good stories. It was realising the team needed clearer structure to continue functioning well, and working to make it happen. Whether it was hiring, instituting HR policy, or intervening in team processes, that was the stuff that energised me.

As Covid hit, I also began going for therapy on a weekly basis and started a daily meditation practice. I had watched an interview where ex-banker Khe Hy talked about how he didn't want to feel stressed anymore, and this sentiment would light the path towards how I ended up thinking about my own life.

When I decided to leave Rice, I did so largely without a plan. Having delegated most of my work and established the right processes, I no longer felt I was needed by the team.

So I quit.

Rice Media’s first office — a server room in an industrial estate.

A new job was supposed to magically transform my life. Yet in looking back at the past year or so that I spent doing something completely new, I wonder if I've actually spent most of it in recovery.

One thing that many others have shared with me is that you never really come back from burning out. At least not 100%.

While I did find a new sense of purpose, I also found myself leaning mostly into the things I enjoyed and knew I would be good at, avoiding anything else that made me feel like I was over-stretching. In situations where I knew I could be doing more or doing better, I would play it safe. It was as though I had developed an internal alarm system that wouldn't stop screaming: Remember what you said about not wanting to feel stressed anymore??

And it's not just work I'm talking about. Whether it's learning something new, cultivating healthier habits, or making time for people, I find myself taking the easy stuff for granted, and forgetting there's still lots to be done.

As I've reflected on this over the last few weeks, I've questioned whether what started out as a genuine need for self-preservation has turned into fear: fear of taking risks, fear of being wrong or bad at something, fear of looking stupid.

I recalled how often this had led to an interminable cycle of what-ifs.

What if it turns into more effort than I'm prepared to commit to?

What if I do this and don't have time for this other thing?

What if the catch up turns out to be super awkward?

What if it turns out that I suck at this new thing I've been thinking of trying?

In some cases, I would end up doing the thing anyway—but only after what often felt like hours of unnecessary agonising.

No longer was I the person who never thought twice about knocking on the doors of complete strangers just to chase down a story.

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A few months ago, I had a conversation with my 13-year-old nephew where I tried to explain why as adults we sometimes find it difficult to do the things we want to do.

In response, he said, "But if you really want to do it, you would just do it."

At the time, I laughed and replied that it's not so simple, blah blah blah inertia, procrastination, fear of failure, whatever.

But he was right.

This is why, in reflecting on what kind of year I wanted 2023 to be, I couldn't help but think: I want this to be the year I start ignoring that internal alarm system, and learn to do hard things again.

There's stuff I'm trying on this front, and maybe I'll write about them at some point. But I share these reflections mainly as a way to say that life, in my experience at least, rarely moves in a straight line. And as I've left one adventure to pursue another, I've learnt that you can change your life for the better, but continue to have things that you're neglecting.

These are the things I'm trying to pay a little more attention to this year.