How volunteers avoid burnout syndrome

We wanted today, dear friends, to talk about burnout syndrome.

I am not a psychologist, and I don’t understand what these words mean for those people who often use them.

There is a lot of talk about this syndrome now, in particular regarding the work of nurses.

Myself have observed the state, which I think is called these words.

I can not give a precise definition of this phenomenon.

I say, as I understand it: a person is engaged in some kind of work, at first he has the strength, there is a desire, there is interest.

And then he begins to feel that this work is unpleasant to him, uninteresting, he does not have the strength to do it.

He does not want to go to work, there is no desire to do something that previously brought him satisfaction.

We will talk about this syndrome in relation to those people who serve others: they are sisters of mercy, volunteers, educators in orphanages.

It seems to me that this condition may have different reasons.

It is present not only among carers in orphanages, not only among volunteers.

Not only among sisters of mercy, but all people have similar states.

Often they are not called burnout syndrome, but sometimes you don’t want to do anything.

It’s difficult to get together, there is some kind of fatigue, depression. It happens all over the world.

In our community, unfortunately, such things happened to many sisters.

We have a wonderful sister who headed one of the divisions.

She did a very good job, did a lot.

This was the beginning of a business, it requires a lot of energy.

And then she broke down so that for about a year she was in the clinic of nervous diseases.

Still not fully recovered.

I observed among people who work in an orphanage as educators, that after several years of work.

They suddenly had a serious condition that could not be overcome.

Maybe this is also a burnout syndrome?

I think that in general in the world in which we live, this state is very common.

When I come across him, I usually remember the words of Shakespeare.

Hamlet’s monologue – the monologue in which Hamlet thinks how to avenge his poisoned father.

Wonders if he wants to do it, but still does not know whether to proceed with it or not.

This monologue ends with these words (I like to repeat them very much, the translation is not very clear, I will explain later): “and those who ascended powerfully, turning off their turn, lose the name of the action”.

This means that a person enthusiastically begins to do something, his beginnings heave up.

But then turn off somewhere to the side and lose what they ascended for, lose their name and end in nothing.

Maybe this can also be called burnout syndrome.

Very often, the matter is in its beginning, especially if this is a good.

Good thing, it can be very good. Like a born baby. Very nice, good.

There is peace in the family, silence.

But he grows up to 16 years, and now to 13-14 years, and outrages begin: he begins to smoke, drink, take drugs.

And this cute baby turns into a terrible monster. At the beginning of many of our affairs, everything was wonderful.

A respected father has repeatedly told me about this.And his community was formed long ago.

It happens that a person continues to do his job, but he does it as if by choice there is no choice.

The case loses its essence, its purpose, meaning.

The young man wants to become a doctor, save the sick, sacrifice themselves.

And, in the end, he ends up taking bribes, drinking bitter, extorting money from the sick, being rude to everyone, sticking to the sisters.

Unfortunately, we see it in everything.

This, too, needs to be thought of, because it also has to do with the burnout syndrome.

Why is this happening?

Partly because when we start something, a person has an interest, inspiration.

And then, this business “becomes boring”, becomes boring, I want something new, another. In the published lists of sins there is even such a “love of newness”.

Someone likes to travel, to survey new species, cities. Then it all gets boring.

I had a friend who, in his youth, still wrote poems, may not be completely perfect, but the meaning is good:

Oh, England! Mistress of the seas!
When I did not know that in England now,
The same parsley as we do!

In principle, when you live in the country, you will see, everything is different from the outside, but everything is the same from the inside!

The same passions, the same sins, the same human weaknesses, squabbles, gossip.

And this passion for novelty can be added to every business. When we satisfy this passion, it turns out that we do not have the strength to make things further.

In addition, there are other passions that can be added to the new case.

This may be vanity or pride.The excitement, the desire to do something great no matter what, to succeed is mixed in.

Sinful passions are mixed with good work.

There is a man, also according to passion, he takes more of his measure, the girl who headed one of our divisions.

She too zealously got down to business and then it turned out to be unbearable for her.

It so happens that when a person does some work, there is no joy. Still, life should be joyful.

Plunging into other people’s sorrows, grief, a person begins to lose the joy of life.

Very often this happens with lonely people.