Yup. I’m burned out.

I think the primary root is work. The schedule has been grueling for the past many many months. It’s put me into a big rut where my day mostly consists of waking, eating, working, and sleeping. When I have “free time” I don’t know what to do with myself because I know I shouldn’t work, but I just don’t know what else to do… but oddly I don’t want to do anything else either, I just want to sit, I just want to nap. I just want to veg in front of the TV. Yes… sure signs of burnout.

Thankfully I’ve just gotten over a major hump and things should be a little lighter for a while. For how long I really don’t know, but at least I don’t feel a need to have to grind endlessly any more. It’s just that natural point in the dev cycle where things lighten up (relatively speaking). We’re close to the end of the cycle, only bug fixes at this point. It’s nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I even felt a bit of rejuvenation this morning as I made my final commit to the Subversion repository and new “features were done” and I was officially in bug fix mode. Triaging the bug database felt good. Something new, something different. Again, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But the burnout has caused some things to suffer. I haven’t been able to spend enough time with my kids or my wife. I gave up formalized martial arts practice, which was good in a way but also meant that I haven’t been regular with physical activity (sitting in a chair all day banging on a keyboard is not physically strenuous… it’s the reason I started martial arts in the first place so many years ago). I haven’t gotten to the gun range in a while. Heck, I haven’t even spent time at the reloading bench in a while. That’s bad. I’ve contemplated selling my motorcycle. Of course, blogging has been light too… both writing and reading. I can’t remember the last time I launched my RSS reader, because it was just too much to keep up with. I had to shed things to survive. Finite amount of energy and motivation, so I have to spend it on what’s truly important: earning that paycheck.

But tonight Wife went out to teach so with her car out of the garage I had space. I donned my Under Armour workout gear, grabbed my gloves, and into the garage I went for a workout. It felt so good. I even found myself in a mental zone I never found myself in before. It was one of pure aggression. Hatebreed’s “Live For This” came on…. “If you don’t live for something you’ll die for nothing!”. Why do I study all of these combatives? Because the something I live for is my Wife and Children. And somehow that all put me into a strong mental state. I was so focused. So energized. It was a strong place I mentally went to, perhaps even a little scary. The sort of place that should anything evil ever happen, that’s the place I’d want to be… it would enable me to take care of business.

I’ve been so trapped by work. I haven’t been able to just freely release anything. Work has been stress. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the job that I do.. .it’s all good, but the reality is there’s massive pressure right now and it wears on you.

It feels good tho. I feel energized. I have some things on the slate for the near future. Good things. Happy things. The schedule is loosening up a bit and if I step back from the stress I know many good things are coming together.

Burnout. Just part of the ebb and flow. On the upswing.