Currently, I work as a freelancer. It’s a privilege for me to be able to choose my work, my working hours and it’s a great way to keep me going while the job market is down. While I completely, 100% acknowledge how lucky I am to be in this position, I know it is almost the complete opposite for many others today. Employees are being laid off left, right and, center; offers are being rescinded, and for those who have been able to keep their jobs things are potentially worse. With reduced staffing and work-from-home employees are being pushed to work harder to keep their jobs, often for lesser pay. The economy is a mess and everyone in the existing workforce and otherwise is really feeling the brunt of this pandemic.
With all that being said I am also highly prone to creative blocks, the need to procrastinate, and laziness related to work, as is almost anyone. Every day I am horrified by the situation around me. The conditions doctors are working in and the rate at which people are falling ill and perishing to this almost invisible enemy. And, each day this thought drags me down. The question that looms over my head and even more so probably over the heads of those who actually go to an office to work, remains 'what if it’s me next?'. It makes each workday harder to get through and makes each workday also seem a little more meaningless. But then, I have a few thoughts that keep me and I’m sure many others going. One of those is money to sustain and another is the fact that working for all of us is ‘normal’. Getting things done is one thing that has not changed through this pandemic.
I’m going to try and put all these things in perspective. Professionals in professions such as medicine and defense are trained to be able to work under pressure. They are conditioned mentally and physically over years of rigorous training to know what they are getting into. This is so that their mental wellbeing does not suffer in the case they come in contact with a high-stress situation. With this pandemic, more medical professionals came face to face with a high risk, high-stress situation as never seen before. They had to not only deal with treating large numbers of patients, but they had to treat them against a disease that is still not completely understood. Thankfully, most of these professionals took the situation in stride, but there is a large number who are struggling too and that is one form of professional burnout which is really taking a toll on both rural and urban India.
Just because doctors and army men have shown great response mechanisms to these extreme situations, that doesn’t mean the rest of us should be able to as well. In India insomnia, depression, anxiety, and restlessness are at an all-time high. Operations for many organizations forced employees to work from home and the lack of an office space didn’t allow employees to turn off their office life. While this seemed like a fun way to live at first, it’s become its own nightmare. Eating whenever we want, sleeping as many or as little as we want and frequent headaches are all direct implications of what a mess we are stuck in. Unfortunately, even though we know the problem, there is no easy solution.
While I would love to say as soon as workplaces fully resume functioning things will be better, they won’t. Just ask those employees who didn’t have work from home phases such as biochemists, pharmacists, or journalists. Going into the office only to see everyone as an alien with a mask from far away is saddening and the only way to combat this burnout is finding a balance. Work-life balance has been a super important term since much before COVID 19 was a thing, but it has never been more relevant. It has never been more important to create workspaces within homes, to differentiate between work and life. And replacements must be found for gyms, hanging out with friends, and other fun things we did to balance our work within the walls of our own homes. I have to have a fixed time to turn off my laptop and stop attending calls and I have to find time to bake bread to stay sane. Professional burnout is real and while this may have not found you a solution, know you’re not alone feeling this way and that finding a way out is possible.