tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post520869590581096674..comments2024-03-28T09:46:42.923-05:00Comments on Every goddamn day: 03/28/24: ‘Our first responsibility is caring for ourselves’Neil Steinberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468057838260476480noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-87810511558958621812021-08-10T13:28:27.710-05:002021-08-10T13:28:27.710-05:00There's an excellent piece about burnout in th...There's an excellent piece about burnout in the May 24th issue of the New Yorker. Apparently, the first coverage of "burnout syndrome" began when veterans returned from Vietnam in the Seventies, and the term spread to include the malaise of overwork that civilians had to deal with in the Reagan Era. It's only grown worse since then. I'm glad I'm not young anymore.<br /><br />A German-born psychologist, Herbert J. Freudenberger, began writing extensively about burnout in the Eighties. I read some of his works while burning out, at one of the big brokerage firms that no longer exist. Freudenberger died in 1999, at the age of seventy-three. His obituary in the New York Times noted, “He worked 14 or 15 hours a day, six days a week, until three weeks before his death.” He had run himself ragged. The expert on burnout...burned out. And he died of it. If that isn't the consummate example of irony, then nothing is.<br /><br />One last thought: When I was about nine years old, my family drove past one of those ubiquitous church signs that clergymen use for their pithy proverbs and platitudes. It read: "I cried because I had no shoes--until I met a man who had no feet." Visualizing a footless man upset me so much that I actually began sobbing. I'll say no more.Grizz 65https://www.blogger.com/profile/02892702223228764894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-24655745789776224672021-08-09T15:41:45.373-05:002021-08-09T15:41:45.373-05:00"The world's a fine place..." "..."The world's a fine place..." "Isn't it pretty to think so?"<br /><br />I don't want to minimize other people's suffering, but in a historical context our current troubles shrink before those of the past. Who would want to revisit the 1920's flue epidemic, when a lethal disease far outstripped the capabilities of the era's medical science. Or the breadlines of the 1930s. Or the horrors of WW II. And of course it all depends on who and where you are. During that war I was a teen ager, consumed with teen matters -- do I dare to ask her go to a movie with me? How to pay for my YMCA membership to enable every free moment on the basket court. My widowed mother then was no doubt then worried sick about my big brother fighting in the Pacific and a Naval officer uncle working on preparations for the invasion in a Britain that was under siege in the second blitz.<br /><br />Tom<br /><br />Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09641357239788323783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-82348213520001251772021-08-09T14:56:07.735-05:002021-08-09T14:56:07.735-05:00"The worst is not, So long as we can say '..."The worst is not, So long as we can say 'This is the worst'"Dave Jacquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17609959560089421718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-82378751316641796532021-08-09T14:12:11.323-05:002021-08-09T14:12:11.323-05:00Indeed. I was just quoting Montgomery Gentry this ...Indeed. I was just quoting Montgomery Gentry this morning. "Even my bad days ain't that bad..."Neil Steinberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11468057838260476480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3972382144120426476.post-22440511264331133702021-08-09T12:47:27.490-05:002021-08-09T12:47:27.490-05:00For me it was having friends who survived Pol Pot&...For me it was having friends who survived Pol Pot's killing fields.<br /><br />Nothing that happens to me in this Midwestern American life will ever come close.Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06939468809703630844noreply@blogger.com