I especially appreciated his insights about depression and burnout. It's so good that I wanted to share it with you! To give some context for the following quote, Palmer has been telling the story of an opportunity he had to be a president of a school. As he and his trusted friends gathered to discern whether he should take it, it emerged rather humourously that his motive for taking the position was only to get his name in the paper.
The ecological theory of life, the theory of limits, works wonderfully well with situations like this: my nature makes me unfit to be president of anything, and therefore - if I stay true to what I know about myself - I will die having avoided a fate that for me would be worse than death.
But what happens to the theory of limits when what I want to do is not to get my picture in the paper but to meet some human need? What happens to that theory when my vocational motive is virtous: to be a teacher from whom students can learn or a counselor who helps people find themselves or an activist who sets injustice right?... There are some things I "ought" to do or be that are simply beyond my reach. If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But the fact that I am exceeding my limits will eventually have consequences. ...
One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burnout. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess - the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place. (pp. 46, 47, 49, italics mine)
I have been thinking about the idea that burnout and depression are really two forms of identity crises. Reading Palmer's thoughts sways me further toward that conclusion.
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