A few days ago, I fell asleep in the late afternoon and experienced three episodes of what I think was sleep paralysis. I cannot confirm that what I experienced was, in fact, sleep paralysis; but from conversations with my friends, and from what I have read online, various descriptions match my experience: I was half-asleep and felt a threat. The threat was real and it was coming towards me, slowly, but coming still. I tried to get up but was unable to. I was pinned down to my bed – a centrifugal force pushed into the mattress. The harder I pushed, the harder I was pushed. Eventually, I woke up and realized that I was in my room and had only been asleep for fifteen minutes.
It wasn’t until the next day, however, that I realized and appreciated what had happened. But why did it happen? What were my dreams telling me? Am I stressed, anxious, burnt out? Why do I immediately assume this experience reflects a psychological or physical problem? After a period of reflection, and after reading Sarah Ray’s A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, I have concluded that my experience, my trouble, like anything else (i.e., climate anxiety), is a result of the interaction of multiple dynamic factors. But in order to understand these factors, it first becomes necessary to take a step back and situate myself within the history of humanity’s existence, within the world, and more narrowly, within the Wake Forest “bubble.” The intent here is to analyze my own experience with anxiety and “burning out” under the lens of Ray’s Field Guide. The hope is to expand upon her arguments and make her recommendations accessible to the Wake Forest community. More specifically, it is to help my peers develop processes to overcome their own variants of anxiety and burn-out.
In situating myself within specific historical, geographic, and demographic experiences, I might begin to understand myself not as another life but rather a product of inter-related historical processes, of distinct ideological legacies, of a unique environment, of past experiences, and thus of unreplicable psychological tendencies. Without getting too caught up in the nuance that this approach might entail, I can identify some basic factors that will help me understand myself – and by extension, my peers understand themselves.
Let’s begin on a macro level and, from there, narrow our scope. I live in the twenty-first century and benefit from a long history of modernization, political and economic development, technological innovation, scientific discovery, exploitation, war, and so on. Compared to my ancestors, I enjoy a comparatively higher degree of comfort: my life is not marked by the sole objective of survival, but rather the opportunity to prosper. Further, I live in the United States and benefit from a higher access to education and operate within a supportive network: again, the focus is excellence and not the avoidance of failure. Finally, I attend a top university in the world; I am exposed to and interact with some of the brightest and most accomplished professors in their respective fields; and my friends will likely be the agents of global change: the goal of this four-year experience is to arouse intellectual curiosity and not technical proficiency – though, the latter tends to come as byproduct of the former.
In short, I am very lucky, and my being at Wake Forest has made this impossible to overlook. The fact that I am even here is a miracle, especially considering the chance of our galaxy’s creation, the chance of earth being ripe for various life forms to develop, the chance that those life forms evolved into something resembling modern humans, the chance that I exist in the peak of human existence, and the chance that I was born into a family that had access to education. In considering myself as the outcome of these processes, my dad’s advice holds permanently true: “The bases are loaded, pal. Don’t f*** it up.” But his words are also a source of great anxiety.
With this in mind, I can identify three factors that contribute to my – and my peers’ – trouble. First is the tendency of Wake Forest students to frame ourselves as constantly overcoming difficult circumstances. Before I came to college, school never caused as much stress as it does now. But now, I – along with my peers – view school work as excessive instead of an opportunity to learn. The “Work Forest” culture promotes this mentality, but the anxiety it produces makes it problematic. Stress, in this view, breeds more stress. So when we come to class and complain about how busy we are, we inadvertently cause our classmates to associate their school work as appropriate sources of stress.
Ray’s observation on sacrifice and the inclination of students and activists – both uniquely idealist – to expend their well-being for a “greater purpose” clarifies my point. “Many of us feel we are complicit in causing harm,” she says, “if we do not suffer alongside those who suffer the most” (40). Or, “if you’re not miserable, then you’re not paying attention” (124). Thus, the average Wake Forest student who does not commit a baseline number of hours to their work cannot reasonably say that they are devoting themselves to some passion. And at Wake Forest, devotion is measured by aggregate levels of stress.
In order to overcome this way of thinking, we need to reconsider our position in the world and, more importantly, come to accept an unavoidable fact: This is higher education and we go to a hard school. The ability to say such a thing within the historical context I outlined above is not a plight by any means, but rather a privilege. It is a privilege to work hard and to suffer in these ways instead of others. As Ray says, “coming to terms with human suffering may cause unhappiness, but awareness is the first step toward living justly” (39). This, in my view, is what it means to be “grounded” – that is, the ability to situate oneself within the context of a larger environment and focus on aspects of your life that you can take advantage of.
However, in some cases, the ability to situate oneself within such contexts can lead to guilt. “Our privileges and advantages, some of which are unearned,” says Ray, “often become a source of guilt when we start to notice them” (115). Guilt is the second factor and it is manifest when we embrace narratives that assign blame for the plight of others. Sure, the United States and its citizens now benefit from a history of power (and exploitation) that only a few empires experienced in the history of civilization. We might be guilty because we have benefitted from certain processes that have negatively affected the situations of others, and more importantly, because we feel as though we are doing nothing about it. Thus, I think a lot of students at Wake Forest work hard because they try to “alleviate the unpleasant feeling of guilt” that comes when we begin to situate ourselves in the world (115).
But the feeling that we are alone in holding this perspective may be especially true for “liberal arts” – or humanities and social science – majors. They share this feeling with climate activists for two reasons: first, at one point or another, we departed from the crowd and decided to study or take up a career considered unconventional. We recognized that studying something that does not immediately translate to a lucrative career is a risk, but a necessary risk to nourish our intellectual curiosity. Similarly, climate activists chose a path inherently unhuman: they put off the maximization of their own well-being, decided against unfettered accumulation, and focused their energy on some future state – a state that may have no bearing on their own existence. So broadly speaking, when the people around us do not appear to share the same concerns that we do, we feel alone, and more importantly, ineffectual.
But it is important to understand that we are not alone or ineffectual. For one, there are, in fact, other people out there working towards the same cause as us. Further, those whom we assume do not share our concerns are actually taking note of similar social problems. And second, even if we were alone, we would not be ineffectual. The converse of this view is a result of what Ray calls “anti-intellectual” tendencies – that is, when we favor action to thinking and emotive reflection (62). “If we follow our narrow definitions of action through to their logical conclusion of meaningful accomplishment,” she says, “it would seem that there is never an end” (63). Further, the perception of ourselves as ineffectual comes “from our ideas of what it means to have the capacity to shape social change” (64). We might think that social change comes as a result of momentous, revolutionary action. However, Ray pushes back on these ideas and demonstrates that true social change only comes when the smaller – sometimes “unglamorous” and imperceptible – actions consistently compound on each other until the new baseline is achieved.
The third factor that, in my view, contributes to my – and the Wake Forest community’s – stress is a powerful yet limiting view. And because I cannot absolutely apply this view to the entire community, I will explain it from my perspective: I tend to think of things as strictly black and white—i.e., I have not successfully accomplished these tasks or made progress in these areas; therefore I am inadequate and incapable. This view can lead to high productivity and great success. However, when unnoticed and left unchecked, it can also lead to intense nihilism (40). “If we need hope in order to keep ourselves engaged,” says Ray, “then we may require tangible evidence of our impact, and we will flag in our efforts whenever evidence is elusive” (122). I agree with Ray that in order to avoid the harmful effects of this view, we must not condition our sense of progress on perceivable gains. More importantly, we must not condition our happiness upon the hopeful realization of some ideal state that may never come. Instead, we should accept our inevitable demise and the idea that we, ourselves, may never realize what we set out to accomplish. All we need is faith in the idea that our work contributed to that goal’s ultimate realization. And Ray reminds us of this when she quotes Howard Zinn: “revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment… but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society” (60).
It is with this that I make the following recommendations to avoid the stress and anxiety that typically lead to burnout: First, take some time to reflect and situate yourself within the world and human history. Focus on what you have benefitted from and how you can help other people enjoy those same benefits. Second, condition your sense of success not upon the achievement of some ultimate goal or the realization of some future state, but rather on the ability (or the privilege) to pursue that goal or state. Third, remind yourself of why it was you decided down your current path in the first place. If you are an activist, or have devoted yourself to a like-cause larger than yourself, a strong feeling must have compelled you to choose this path over another. It is likely that if you abandon this path, that feeling will reemerge. Fourth, (and this accompanies the previous point), find not what brings you momentary happiness but what brings you purpose—i.e., “where [your] personal power comes from” (53). To do this, we should focus on what we love more than on what we think we are supposed to pursue (54). If what you are doing now does not, in some way, align with what you want to do or be in the future, then something needs to change. You will not eventually do what you want to do by doing anything but that passion. And finally, combat hard with hard: when your anxiety or stress is heightened, I recommend doing something physically challenging. Not only will your visceral discomfort fade with the realization that the supposed stressor is smaller than you initially perceived, but you will also gain clarity of your short- and long-term objectives.
Shared by: Anonymous
Image Credit: CGT