Frankly Put: Take A Break
Inhale. Exhale. Make it to the end of the week. Then the next one and the next one. This endless cycle that wears down the wheels I swore were all-terrain ~Frankhie
Knocking on wood for all out there, those at the end of the tether, those who are smack in the middle of this journey and those who are at the start. If I am being honest, there seems to be this heavy air of fatigue that has hung lower in the skies this past year. Burn out? Could it be?
Having to come to terms with the fact that my own stamina has been put through the wringer with this school year and I am only halfway through it. *cue sharp exhale* Brave face and perseverance in the backpack. Where the only response people share between each other is “Surviving”. I do recall nearly feeling this same thing in the past though, that one month of KCSEs to close out secondary school. To be a pioneering class to a new type of acrobatics by the government is a different experience. Shout out to you if at the mention of Class 8 2012 and Form 4 2016, you shudder a little. As I think about it, we are also having to get through the graduating class in a pandemic. Is there some curse on us?
Now we sit and think, is this really something we can really push through? I mean, we can hold our heads high and say it’s been done before so what is stopping us but I have to be honest, this time is hitting a little different. “But aren’t you that guy/girl?” “Si you can do it?” the questions flood in from hopeful faces so we keep marching on, even though truthfully we left our legs a couple of kilometers back, our will a couple of months ago, our drive a couple more ago. I look around at how the people in my life have been handling this whole campus experience and if I could speak for them “Shukisha hapa!”, if just for a little bit.
About a week ago, (ha! Legend)- two from the time you read this- I decided to shuffle my music library and the algorithm decided upon me some musical soundtrack that I hadn’t listened to in the longest time, since the same 10 songs had been on repeat for a while. I digress. Anyone who has experienced the musical already knows where I am heading but for those who don’t, it is the Hamilton: An American Musical Soundtrack, specifically “Take A Break”. I like to work and jam but the song came on and I just had to pause because the words, they were hitting a little different. It is like Lin-Manuel Miranda was just speaking to me in that moment and I thought, “why not?” so I opened a new tab and started to write the title to this.
In that headspace I am recognising the image I painted, in the minds of those around me and myself, of this self-driven and constantly working person. I recall how someone in my life used to get mad at me because they hated when I didn’t rest, which was more times than not. This addiction to working was consuming and even though it sounds like the dream of every African parent, I think it draws a line that becomes a little harder to hit with age. Perhaps, the working was some kind of obsession… was? is? The comfort in a full schedule so we can feel we are achieving something. The unrest in empty spaces in the calendar and to-do lists, that fights the comfort that comes with it. Thinking it is something we are cultured into. Perhaps, a side effect of a school system that pumped us full of information that we only regugitated in output on exam sheets. We paint this beautiful image of overworking, like it’s the only tell of passion for what we are doing.
Decorated sleepless nights on school nights to get an A, stress to achieve a first class honours in university, then risk of trying to jump into the whirlwind that is a career and if there is a slight misstep, you might be eating tarmac for a while. When you get that internship you are working to the bone to prove you are good enough to work in the industry and you aren’t even being paid. When you are deemed ready, that paycheck comes in but is it really worth the boat-leads of work that is done? Woe is you if you are a creative, having to work twice as hard to stay above that ‘starving artist’ image. What are we doing? What am I really doing?
Are we still subconsciously chasing that acknowledgement of being called “busy” or “hardworking”? Is there some sort of validation to no rest that we conditioned ourselves into seeking? I get the satisfaction of putting in that work and getting the results you deserve but are we putting ourselves on a self-powered treadmill, where we dangle that satisfaction in front of our faces and tell ourselves the faster we run the more likely we are to get hold of the goal? Is this sustainable? Are we killing ourselves to attain images we don’t even care for? When was the last time we actually experienced “living” while running for this “soft life”?
I recall at a point in time, possibly a month or so ago — there is a warped sense of time here, my social media was chock-full of posts along the lines of “I am not even learning, I’m just submitting assignments.” and the mass relatability to the posts was just eye-opening. Maybe we didn’t approach this situation in the best way? The human being is such an interesting, fragile creature.
That being said, dear future me, as I write you these letters to explain what the hell I think is going on, don’t hate me for being non-stop. I’ll keep writing like I am running out of time because you and I both know we have dreams and plans and “I can’t stop until I get my plans through congress.”
I guess, the take away is let passion burn, burn bright but not burn you out, to put it Frankly.
