Fatigue

I collapsed today in the corner between a wall and the doorway to a church. Having taken up the place to relax my back while I scribbled in my book, my hand and brain ran out of energy after a few short paragraphs. With only a second thought, I nodded off in the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

When I woke up, I read over the words that preceded my nap. They communicated my clear fatigue.

For me, there is a difference between being tired and being fatigued. Tired is taking on a full day of yard work after a week of office work. Tired is after 2 days and two nights on an Indian train. It’s standing on your feet for three hours straight or pulling back to back all nighters.

Fatigue has much more to do with where one is emotionally and spiritually. The crushing blow came for me today when I officially recognized that, at the moment, I’m out of my depth in a few key ways. For one, I’m not taking on my usual position and responsibilities of program coordinator and project planner. Second, I’m working in a culture that doesn’t stress punctuality, which tends to stress out my group and me. Lastly, I’m working with a group that doesn’t process like me or manage itself in a way I understand well. To be sure, it’s not been easy to move these days.

I’m not using my best skills, so I’m challenged to adopt new methods and new tools. This process of adaptation requires incredible energy. Learning new techniques and struggling through the growing pains at 27 isn’t an easy task. Shouldn’t all things be a snap to me now? Instead I find myself taking on responsibilities for the personal development of my team and its individuals, a job for which I’m only harnessing my skills.

The key to all of this is that hard work and dedication only take on so much. They actually get in the way sometimes. For me, hard work can often be ego-driven. I can work hard because I think its impossible for me to not be capable of learning something. So the learning and doing process is more about me than about the people it’s meant to impact.

I’m developing two radical (okay, not radical and not even new) concepts for dealing with this fatigue.

Making myself available to a stronger force than myself. When the ego is clearly in the way, the challenge is to make room for something else to enter in to my thoughts and actions. It’s a process of realizing my own limitations and looking to tap into something much deeper, broader and exceedingly more wise and capable than my simple understandings and reactions. At some point, the ego becomes aware of its own fragility and demands to lean on an understanding much greater than its own.

Asking for help. In a similar vein, its seeking out the aid of others around me to help me with my development – to add insight where I’m blind, to lead the way when I need to follow and to encourage me when I stumble. This is terribly difficult for me. Afteral, it requires great humility. But somehow (perhaps the biggest surprise of the last 4 months), I’ve finally learned how to take feedback constructively and without defense, developed a sense of my own limitations and noticed the clear strengths of others in areas in which I’m deficient. It’s never easy to recognize one’s limits, we are, after all extremely complex beings with an innate God-sense that draws us to see ourselves as limitless. But whether we break an arm as a youngster and notice our own mortality or give thanks that some people like accounting when we can’t add up, limitations are powerful. They give us something to strive beyond while they also guide us to the people who can take us to the next level in partnership.

These thoughts have restored me from fatigue, but it’s the end of the day and I must rest. For now – I’m tired.