A former mentor gave me some valuable advice once about this that didn't make sense til years later. Basically, I got a computer science degree while working full time minimum wage - in a very competitive program and high cost of living area. It was extraordinarily hard, orders of magnitude harder than anything else I've ever done, just trying to survive and not starve and somehow find the time to do well in my studies.
He said something like "if you keep burning the candle at 110% like you have been for long, you'll find that you often can find something deep within you to keep going, but eventually, this can run dry, and it doesn't really regenerate. It takes something from you that you aren't going to get back."
I don't mean minor stuff like, "oh I'm really tired today and I don't want to go to school." I'm talking like, very difficult coursework + stressful job + major life calamities and personal loss all compiling at the same time in a way that you just want to crawl into a pit and die, yet, you keep going - that kind of willpower/stamina whatever you want to call it.
He was right. I think he was alluding somewhat to burnout, which I think is related but somehow different - I am not the same person I was before that endeavor, and don't feel I really ever "healed" from it. It's very difficult to describe. feels a little like anhedonia, like a part of me has been missing since then. When I get in similar circumstances now, I find it harder to summon whatever it was inside of me that "kept going."
I expect I'm still healing because I'm only ~10 years removed from this, but, sometimes I'm not sure.
He said something like "if you keep burning the candle at 110% like you have been for long, you'll find that you often can find something deep within you to keep going, but eventually, this can run dry, and it doesn't really regenerate. It takes something from you that you aren't going to get back."
I don't mean minor stuff like, "oh I'm really tired today and I don't want to go to school." I'm talking like, very difficult coursework + stressful job + major life calamities and personal loss all compiling at the same time in a way that you just want to crawl into a pit and die, yet, you keep going - that kind of willpower/stamina whatever you want to call it.
He was right. I think he was alluding somewhat to burnout, which I think is related but somehow different - I am not the same person I was before that endeavor, and don't feel I really ever "healed" from it. It's very difficult to describe. feels a little like anhedonia, like a part of me has been missing since then. When I get in similar circumstances now, I find it harder to summon whatever it was inside of me that "kept going."
I expect I'm still healing because I'm only ~10 years removed from this, but, sometimes I'm not sure.