Irish Times writer Patrick Freyne talks to Ray about taking a much-needed break, recovering from burnout and re-connecting with what he loves about work and community. Listen back above.
The notion of "being your best self" is taking a beating - and rightly so, according to Patrick Freyne. The writer and columnist with The Irish Times spoke to Ray D'Arcy about the torrent of advice on social media that encourages us to give it 110%, all day every day. Patrick's recent piece for the paper on his own journey through burnout and beyond has gone viral and transformed the author into a kind of "demotivational" influencer overnight.
The idea of becoming a demotivational speaker is really just a joke, Patrick explains, but working yourself into a state of anxiety is not. Coming off the back of a deep dive into Tiktok messaging about motivation, Patrick says his research chimed with what was happening in his own life, and he realised he was no longer enjoying the job he loved. It's time for us all to slow down a bit, he says:
"I had this thing in my head for ages, that here should be someone telling people 'You know, have a little bit of a rest.’"
Last year, Patrick says he realised he was suffering from burnout and that he was not alone:
"I hit a total wall with overwork and around the same time, I started talking to other people and I realised that there’s a ridiculous amount of burnout out there."
Patrick puts the phenomenon down to a number of things - organisations cutting staffing to the bone has left many employees with more responsibilities at work than they can physically and mentally cope with. In addition, he says that we are being schooled by influencers on social media that time management is something we can all control, and that if we are not coping, the fault lies with us alone.
The burnout crept up on him slowly, so he didn't see it coming. If you work hard, Patrick says; you blame yourself for feeling overstretched:
"I have a tendency to overwork and it comes from anxiety and then it hits me like a ton of bricks, like, I don't know why I’m working. I’m not particularly getting joy from it. And you always feel a little bit behind."
One of the common features of burnout he says, is never feeling that you are done - you can never get to the end of anything. Patrick says that unlike end-of-year exams at school, work is potentially endless and there is no finish line. He says it's ok to accept that you can't do everything:
"Even if everything is perfect, you're never going to finish everything. Knowing that actually made me relax a little bit."
Focussing on individual improvement is a distraction from the fact that we need society and community to thrive, Patrick believes. Failure to earn enough money to buy a house, for example, can feel like an indivudual failure; but there are systemic questions to ask about why this is so hard, Patrick says:
"Back when we were a very poor country, we were building large amounts of social housing. Instead of asking those questions, there's a focus now put on the individueal, increasingly."
Patrick says he was very lucky to have an employer who supported him taking time off to rest, take some exercise and do some thinking. He's now back at work, but he says he's taking things more slowly than before.
As far as possible, everyone needs to carve out some time to make and re-make connections with loved ones and community. Working a little bit less is part of the picture, he says:
"When you're not over-working, it’s easier to engage with your community. It’s easier to engage with your neighbours. The bus driver, community work, things that connect you to your wider community. You are more than the thing that you are meant to be productive at."
Financial pressures and the gig economy make this almost impossible for many, Patrick says. But he believes we should still ask those bigger questions about the way we work now:
"The idea that we live in a culture now where employees feel like they should do more than they're contracted to is bizarre."
Finding hobbies and interests that gave you joy in the past is a good place to start. And your hobby doesn't have to be your side-hustle, Patrick says. You also don't need to be the best at it - just do it for the sake of it:
"Just following an interest in something and again forgetting about excellence and forgetting about winning and just doing something because the experience of it is enjoyable."
Above all, Patrick believes it's a mistake to think that excellence is always a choice - it's ok just to get by most of the time:
"Being average isn't bad. We can’t all be excellent all the time."
