Sad Boyz - Burnout

Episode Date: February 3, 2018

Jarvis and Jordan are at wit's end. They're doing too much, burning the candle at both ends—but the show must go on. Sad Boyz is, after all, our group therapy session that we share with all of you... emotional voyeurs (?) On a (late) episode of Sad Boyz, the boys discuss their experiences with burnout: Where it comes from, how it affects us and the people around us, and finally what we can do about it. Also in this episode, Jarvis talks about his wildly busy weekend that inspired this episode and a lot of changes in his life and Jordan.. well, Jordan thinks the city from the movie footloose is called footloose.

Welcome to the Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. And I'm Jordan the Sick Boy. I'm dying, Jarvis. You have no color in your skin. You look like you're 95 years old. I called you here to give you my greatest possession. What is your greatest possession? My status as sidekick on the podcast. I'm gonna have to pass. Wait, do i simultaneously get to be host and sidekick of the podcast nope i transitioned to a young handsome main host um i'm gonna have to say

no on that one please you must destroy a painting with my visage as a sidekick you could have offered me anything and you offered the least appealing thing 100 also today we have a topic we do we'd have a we usually. It's a good job, really. I just thought I'd let everybody know that there's a topic. It's got a little loosey-goosey. It's a little loosey-goosey. Screw the topic. Let's just be ourselves.

Nah. No one wants to hear that. We have no reason to hang out. So today, we're talking about Burnout. We are. The popular racing series from the mid-to-late. Yeah, we're talking about the video game burnout from 2002 uh on xbox original xbox uh culminating in what many consider the zenith of arcade style racing

games burnout paradise in 2009 highly recommend purchasing that um shit i know a lot about burnout paradise we should maybe give a description of what burnout is in this context yeah because it tripped me up when i first moved here because nobody uses it at least in the uk people are like oh i'm so i'm at burnout right now yeah uh oh you want to play i'm down yeah let's go yeah so burnout is essentially when you overwork yourself and then become so exhausted that you are really ineffective at doing anything yeah and then you start to generate this this weird guilt cycle which makes you more burnt out which makes you more burnt out it's not like a thing that goes away naturally you have to be kind of proactive about it yeah yeah not dissimilar from when we

were talking about the cleaning house stuff a few episodes ago uh not doing so is typically what leads to a form of burnout right right and we should mention it's not exclusively work always. It can also just be personal projects. Yeah. Basically your brain running out of RAM. By overwork, I mean overwork in putting your body up to things without getting adequate rest and essentially not living a sustainable lifestyle

with regard to working habits. Which, you know, if anybody knows of us off the podcast, two crazy party animals just try and get me to stay home one night and have a bubble bath and drink a glass of wine i'm always out on the town yeah i can never i can never find sometimes i show up to jordan's house to record the show and he's out partying and i'm like jordan it's 4 p.m on a wednesday i'm in all the main clubs i go to dance your favorite clubs yeah here yeah yeah tell us your favorite names there's so many good names that I know, definitely.

Oh, yeah. Hit me with number one. Yeah, of course, because I know all of them. Yeah, you know. So why would I find it hard to say one? There's Footloose, right? That's a club where you're not allowed to dance. And a minister punishes you if you do.

Is that kicking off your Sunday shoes? There are no Sunday shoes allowed in Footloose. Was the town in Footloose called Footloose, by the way? I've been saying that for years. It's like we lived in Footloose. That's not the case. I'm sure people assume you mean the movie Footloose. That's like if I said if if we lived in school of rock,

remember when we all studied at school, school of rock, Minnesota, I am not going to look up the city that I want to maintain it as an important part of your person. So the reason that we're talking about burnout today is I don't know about you, Jordan, but I feel like I'm on the verge right up against the edge. No, just on the website, theverge.com. Oh, cool. Where you can get up-to-date tech news. They've got a bunch of info about the series is coming back to BS4, which is great. No, I have been doing a little bit too much recently.

And I just kind of had this phase of focusing where I reduced a lot of the stuff that was taking up my time in an effort to have a more sustainable lifestyle because i just felt like the way i was going was not going to end well jordan have you been overworking yourself lately uh yeah i mean that's one of the reasons we thought this would be an appropriate topic for today um for a little peek behind the curtain the way we typically do topics is we are just texting about when we want to do the episode and then at one point somebody will go what about this thing yeah i think this thing's interesting or if have a guest, it's usually predetermined a little earlier. But in the case of you and me, it's usually pretty flexible.

We say, okay, kind of want to do an episode on XYZ. And we go, I'm closest to this right now. Right, right. Like in my status. And with Burnout, it was like immediate. Yeah, yeah. Double gratification. We're like, yeah, okay, yeah.

I think the reason we were both so immediately aligned on this one is because we're both there right now. Or both right on the precipice. Oh, yeah. And as a result, we thought, hey, what better than to attend our local therapy session that we share with each other and a bunch of other people that shouldn't, people don't get it.

The podcast isn't for them. We record this for prosperity. It's not for them to listen to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Prosperity? Prosperity. Yeah, I was going to help you out with that one. No, it was for prosperity.

And I was right the first time. Prosperity and prosperityperity. Yeah, I was going to help you out with that one. No, it was for prosperity. And I was right the first time. Prosperity and prosperity. Don't tweet me. It was correct. And persper-parity. Perspiration. Perspiration and pers-parity, which means when you have the same purse as someone else. As a joke.

Yeah. What a golden bit. Oh my god, I've lambasted her by purchasing the same purse. I've achieved pers her by purchasing the same purse. I've achieved purse parity. We have all found true purse parity. Jordan, on the topic of burnout, how was your week? Overall, my week has been pretty good. The last two weeks have been very stressful work-wise, which is not something I dislike at all. I mean, it's the reason I work where I work,

is that it's intense, it's a startup, it's fast moving. But every now and then you do stop and whatever the opposite of smelling the roses is, kind of shoot roses out of your nose. Roses out of your noses? Rosie out your nosy. And you stop and you aren't really able to appreciate the small things. Yeah. And that's where I've gotten quite recently. Okay. But outside of that, to focus on the positive before we dive into our main topic for the day, I've been doing a lot of interesting stuff with my home space.

I've been moving things around. We're recording downstairs in the living room for the first time in a minute. Yeah, not since, I don't know, episode four? Yeah, if you're sensing a lack of sexual tension, which is usually on the podcast, that's because I'm not lying in my bed this time. Yeah, we're not on the same bed. We're on the same couch. So very different vibe.

Kind of a classier, more romantic tone. Yeah. We have a fire and a bear rug i skinned diva and made a rug yeah we've got a chromecast playing a video of a fireplace and my tv is very hot i don't know why that happened it's very hot the tv on fire um but yeah my week has been pretty positive overall um all of the things that were causing me trouble more or less have now been addressed or surmounted in some way which is very satisfying place to be in i'm also taking a personal day tomorrow yeah some personal projects and i want to vocalize what those are oh because i want some accountability forced upon me by the the fam of the boys i'm a big fan of but sad boys fam is taking off i think that you're allowed to say either yeah it's your preferred term yeah you do you you do you but you're saying that you want the community that lives primarily over on

twitter at sad boys pod or on facebook at sad boys pod to keep you accountable for these goals of yours i want the and let's call them what they are Listening to our therapy sessions These emotional perverts These voyeurs Yeah okay You could be a fan of the boys You could be a bad boys fan Or you could be an emotional voyeur A pod perv A pod perv

I want each and every one of you To keep me accountable That at some point in the next Let's call it month Okay Next month's worth of episodes Yeah For me to provide some kind of update On the video essay I'm trying to write Oh hell yeah in the next, let's call it, month. Okay. Next month's worth of episodes. Yeah.

For me to provide some kind of update on the video essay I'm trying to write. Oh, hell yeah. I've wanted to get into video essays for a very long time. I've wanted you to get into video essays for a pretty long time already. Possibly more so than I do. Yeah. I'm constantly texting Jordan like,

yo, what's happening with the essay? How can I help? How can we get this out? But we're recording at what? It's 5.50 right now. And I am drinking a Philz tea that I went out and got because I napped today because I was sick at home. And I worked throughout the day just in bed. And then I said to myself, okay, after my little nap before we record, I'm probably going to be too wired to go back to sleep.

Right. I'm just going to stay up. I'm taking a personal day tomorrow. Yeah. I'm going to stay up real late. Back in college, whenever I used to, I wrote a lot of video essays back in the day and never produced anything yeah and i would always do it between the hours of two and eight a.m it's it's it's gonna be like going back to the old days the magic hour like uh whenever i'm awake in those hours and i start to feel like that tiredness but where i stay up it reminds me of college yeah that and being a kind

of hungry all the time yeah yeah always always those two factors are very college i speaking of those two things exactly i have had a week also no way yeah bullshit and my week has been well i had the busiest weekend of all time like i've never had less free time or less time to myself, less time to decompress. I learned so much about myself this weekend. And it kind of incited this whole... I knew I was on the verge of burnout before, but this kind of cemented that I need to do something about it. Essentially, on Friday night, I had a dinner from five to eight.

And then I had a friend who was in town from seattle uh and i met them for dinner after that like sort of second dinner and then saturday both on friday night both on friday night already already and then saturday that's great because you got to test out all of your jokes at the previous dinner yeah i got to make all the jokes about eating on friday january you'd see what worked what didn't yeah it was hilarious it was good yeah a few more dinners and i think i'm gonna start doing a national tour i'm gonna be actually funny i think it's been a few years and i think i'm ready for it um then saturday rolls around i had an event that i had to get to from nine to five and then i oh my lord i had three hours that's like a job i had i know

i had three hours of break and then i had uh the museum of ice cream from like eight to ten i know it was my it was like my friend came from seattle and brought her three friends to i bought the tickets for this thing museum of ice cream it's like less a museum and more an instagram paradise where like everywhere you turn it's like a backdrop for an instagram photo do you think the person that runs the museum of ice cream is allowed to go to like the museum curator summits yeah oh they just get outside and everyone points and laughs he's like but me too and they're like no but then but then like a year later he's like wow this guy's getting a lot more traction than any of our museums yeah this is the richest museum

curator in the world yeah it's uh you just have to appeal to vanity and then you're gonna go and ice cream treats treats and vanity treat everybody like children and they'll love you forever they'll love you forever and then um after museum of ice cream people wanted to go out and then i kind of had to do some of the clubs that i mentioned earlier yeah like footloose have you heard about footloose uh i could name others don't need to no i'm not gonna ask you i can just see them like rolling through your brain yep i like left early because i had this youtube live stream so the YouTube live stream happens, ends up like noon. I prepared probably from eight, just getting the stream ready, trying to not have any technical hiccups.

So we do the stream for about an hour. And it went great. It went great. I was there, I was deep in the DMs. Yeah, you were deep in the cut. And then a mere three hours later, I got another three hour break. And then I had rehearsals and practice from three to nine. And this is for improv.

This is for improv and sketch. And it was just by the time it was Sunday and I'd finished the live stream, I was like, no more. And then I knew that I had six hours of like needing to be on. Yeah. And it was like, it's not only that like I need to be awake or something like that. It's like I need to be creatively stimulating and be contributing to something and using my brain and there is a possibility of failure if you don't yeah like actual stakes oh and there was and there was much failure um oh no no i mean it was fine but i was

totally like on edge a little bit you know was this a uh show no just just practice and rehearsals but improv practice is still yeah it's effectively a show it's like it was like three hours and it was uh this one particularly was about physical comedy so it was a lot of jumping around and learning about how clowns do their comedy and basically a lot of stretching and jumping and motions water salsa yeah it was it was a lot um and then yeah and then the other rehearsal was just like a thing where i had to recall all my lines and that was just like embarrassingly bad i was just like couldn't i was just brain dead at that point uh or i mean my brain was fried at

that point i didn't have the ability to recall any of my lines and it was just like so embarrassing i like i swear i'm good for it i'm just like so beat i owe you yeah i'll text you the lines later you a good comedic performance um and now you and now we're starting to touch on like the actual practical implications of burnout because burnout as like an emotionally exhausting place to be is bad enough yeah when it's like negatively dominoing into other things that you and other people value yeah that's when it's time to maybe do something yeah i guess you guess. And you did. I did. I guess we've now officially transitioned into the topic.

Oh, do you want to sing the topic theme? Burnout in paradise. It's not to be confused with burnout paradise. We should have called it something else. Bad SEO. But unfortunately, we've already bought the domain whoops kind of weird it no wow long theme it's got a lot of pauses anyway you thought we were gone he's back please leave sir um he's like outside the door so to jump head first into the topic right be careful um it's very it's a

very hard topic yeah it's just spiky um moves very quickly would you say because we've sort of alluded to the idea that you've made some changes right right right and proactive about trying to get out of this headspace yes one what the hell did you do yeah uh and two what was the catalyst for you doing it what was the catalyst for you doing it? What was the catalyst for you making the change? Because this is not the first time that I think your life and work and hobbies have conflicted in this overwhelming. So I think it's a couple of things.

First, like the weekend was a sign that something was off. I wasn't enjoying the stuff I was doing. And usually the reason that I get myself into these situations is because I am just so excited about all the things that I want to do all the things. But it was just so draining. A lot of it just wasn't something I was looking forward to. And I was starting to notice a pattern with that. And that's kind of one of the signs of burnout with me when it's like everything feels like

something I have to do. And I'm just like, feel like I'm not, I don't have the agency in my own life. I'm not in charge of my own decisions. I kind of am just a passenger that has to respond to stimulus on command. And then suddenly there's this clean example that that is what's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like that might be the case. Oh, I just died.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I burned my house to the ground. And then I talked to our, well, I was going to say one of our co-workers, but our CEO. Our dad. Our dad. Our sweet little daddy. Dad. Dad Conti.

Dad Conti about creative stuff and time management a bit. And we made this plan for 2018. Basically, if you were writing the press release for 2018 and 2019, so fast forward to February 1st, 2019, and you're writing a press release that goes, Jordan's 2018 was his best year of all time. Here's what happened. And you write out that stuff. It's like fill in the blank, like what happened? I won't ask you to do that here, but maybe we can do this exercise later. And so I like gave my answers to that. And then like when I put everything down, when I thought about my priorities and when it was put in a list that needed to be prioritized and like focused, I became acutely aware of the fact that I can't do everything well.

Yeah. I, despite- Fucking dad Conti. I know. Just knocks it out of the park. First try. Yeah. Like, hey, here's something I've been struggling with for basically my entire life. I'm going to check out my Jack.

What up, y'all? He's like that. Yeah, he is like that. Can I do a real Jack? I'm going to try. Yeah, give it a go. Hey, Jarvis. Yeah.

How about this thing? Oh, thank you. You just solved every problem I've ever had. Yeah, it was a little bit like, oh, these are so great. Okay. But I have a couple more questions for you. Yeah, I'm missing the power in my punch. Yeah, but so we did that.

And that was just like another thing that helped sort of, I had already kind of made up my mind at that point regarding some things. But did you write a physical like press release? Did you actually do the exercise or was it more of like? We did the exercise live in our little meeting. And before that, I had written a bunch of notes to prepare to think about things and i had come to this conclusion i just felt right but it was nice to have someone who had also like you know he's the ceo of our company but he does a bunch of creative projects as well and i know that he's had to

manage like stuff like this before and so i was asking questions like how do you know when to like cancel a project, to leave something behind? I've been bearing the lead a bit on this. I decided to stop doing improv. So for context, I've been doing improv comedy for about two years. And when I started, it was really fun because I could just like, it was something cool and new. And I was learning about comedy and I was learning about performing and I was just growing, growing, growing so much. And then I joined, I finished all the, taking all the classes I could take and I auditioned for a team. And then I got a position on a team that performed for the theater, a Herald team, and did that for about a year.

And then just as time went on, I began to realize I wasn't excited about the path to continued growth. Yeah. The result of this grind. Exactly. I know there's a ton more for me to learn, but the difference between now and then, it was like the path ahead of me was a path I didn't want to go down. It's like the shit I didn't want to eat, right? Whereas with other projects, for example, like this podcast, it has to exist forever. It's one of those projects that I was talking to Jack about this. One of my goals for 2018 is stability. And this was one thing on the path to stability, just reducing the number of engagements, reducing the number of projects that I'm doing. This is a show that's almost effortless for us to do and feels like we're compelled to do it yeah and that is so rare

because we've both started and given up on projects that didn't have that characteristic so and how in finding a project like that especially when it's a social collaborative project has rejuvenative properties exactly like doing a sad boys as i said i'm about to probably do an all-nighter a sad boys is going to give me the energy to do that as opposed to take away the energy I would be spending on it. Yeah. And, and one thing that was really hard for me is like the people that I was affecting with my decision. Like I feel bad that I'm not going to like get to play with my friends anymore. Cause I really do enjoy that. And I still really do enjoy like being on stage and stuff, but I couldn't be at least at my current state of like projects, I couldn't be there to the degree that I wanted to be.

I felt like they deserved me at 100%. And I was giving like 35% max. I like that. It's almost, it's actually remarkably similar to a breakup. Right. Because functionally you're doing something that is the healthiest decision for both of you. Exactly. Because if even only one of the two parties is interested in breaking up you should probably break up yeah because it's going to be ultimately kind of toxic yeah exactly so while you love

improv and you love your team you love other things more and have to make that a priority and eventually it's just going to become like an angry resentful marriage if you force it to stay yeah yeah it's like it's just like a not right now thing you know yeah i have a very bad analogy if you'd like to hear it here hear me out is what i was gonna say i'm an alien i don't know how to talk hear me the word hear you out uh you want to sing the jordan's tortured analogy thing oh yeah oh god it's jordan's torture analogy it's kind of like you wouldn't get it we need a visual component of this podcast because the faces you make when you sing the themes are uh memorable to say the least you look like every emoji i just cycle through all of them

yeah you had the joyce dream. Here's my eggplant face. Put it away. Sorry. Zip. Gross. Why do you have an eggplant in your pants? That was weird. But yeah, I talked to an analogy for this specific situation.

And let me know if it aligns because I think I'm on board. Would you say that, let's say for example, that you are an athlete and you're working out. Working out, going to the gym is improv. It's like an exercise that makes you better at a trade that you care about. it uh ultimately is like great for your craft right right anybody that goes into comedy should at least try out improv because it's just adding a quiver to your bow yeah yeah quiver to your bow another bad analogy because you don't add quivers you have a quiver the quiver contains arrows how embarrassing would that be i bought the bow and several quivers as you ask my lord i just don't understand why these quivers aren't flying that's so heavy

but yeah so you're working out and you're getting your reps in and you're becoming stronger and therefore better at the project you care about right but then suddenly you get picked up on an actual olympic team right and you are exercising every single day uh we could call this either work or sad boys or youtube or whatever yeah several of these other things that in and of themselves were kind of the result of you doing improv in the first place right you found a love for for artistic contribution and collaboration and for comedy and you said okay now i take these big muscles and i don't just do a backflip at home i I do it in Beijing, right? There's a purpose to this. And then all of a sudden, like you're working out so much just doing the things. Yeah.

That you don't need to go to the gym. Also going to the gym is just overworking your body and you're ultimately losing muscle. Right, right. It's like I kind of feel like I, you know, love eating cake or something. And then I just have more slices of cake to eat and then it's like wow jarvis sure you can eat all that cake and i'm like i got this and then after the sixth slice of cake cake isn't good anymore it's probably not good after like the first slice of cake but after the sixth slice it's definitely not good pretty mediocre after

you've swallowed the first bite of cake. After you've chewed it and gone, oh, that was good. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, like, it's a little bit, like, over-stimulus, right? Like, it's just... And the hardest part is that I felt like I was only giving 35%, right? And basically spreading yourself thin means that you can't really do anything well. And a Harold team, if I'm understanding it correctly, there's, like, a reasonable limit, right? You don't just have as many people as you can't really do anything well. And a Herald team, if I'm understanding it correctly, there's like a reasonable limit, right?

You don't just have as many people as you can. So if you are taking up a space that somebody who could be more dedicated might be able to take. Well, so the thing is we had finished being a Herald team and we had transitioned to a new show that's playing at the theater. But the team, like we've had people move

and some stuff happening. So we're looking for new members. And I was coming off of a break. If there's any time to come back and rejoin in full force it's now and i started practicing again and i was like i know what full force is and i'm not ready to give it right now and it's like i can't no it's not even i'm not ready to give it it's just like i can't do it uh and that hurts to like have to come to terms with yeah again really clear relationship metaphor there right yeah like you are you've had relationships in the past you know what the honeymoon period was like with this partner yeah and now that you've come back to them you're like okay this isn't the honeymoon period i

remember what that was like and i'm clearly not there again right right for me to occupy this person's space and request their 100 without me contributing yeah yeah yeah but it's it's i would i would also say that time is an important aspect of it like at a different time who knows but I just all I know is like right now yeah yeah and there's nothing wrong with it the weird thing about and again I'm torturing the relationship metaphor here do you want to sing the tortured metaphor theme it's really different oh god just please it's if... You wouldn't get it. I guess it wasn't that different. I guess I was misremembering the theme.

By the way, these are both similes that I'm doing. Oh, yeah. No, it is this thing. You wouldn't get it. Yeah. It's kind of like a cow. You wouldn't get it. You wouldn't get it.

The weird thing about, about like artistic projects or anything that you're doing for your own benefit including a relationship or including anything that doesn't have like external financial value or whatever like a job right maybe you need to stay at a job because you need the financial security to find another job or to just sustain your family etc etc when it's a thing you do for fun when it's a thing that exists to make you happy yeah and it's not doing that as intended yeah you don't have to do it anymore it's only that right like that's the function of it i came up with a metaphor just now which is like yeah give me a theme is that it that was the theme yeah okay cool um so it it's kind of like you go throughout your life, going and making decisions,

and some decisions accrue debt. It's like life debt or something, or energy debt. Let's call it energy debt. So some stuff gives you energy, some stuff takes your energy away. I think that burnout is like when you accrue so much energy debt by doing too much stuff, by overworking yourself, that your debt collapses on itself and you have to declare bankruptcy. Yeah. And I'm going on vacation next week. Perfect timing. Yeah, I know, right?

It's like if it wasn't coming, I don't know what I'd do. I think I would feel trapped if I hadn't planned this vacation. And my manager was super supportive and was trying to get me to do it and so i was like all right i got it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna go to new york and like visit russell he's just trying to get you to leave the office yeah yeah he's trying to get me out so they can uh so they can change my name on all the things seriously take a vacation take your materials and your laptop and all of your notes with you take it you know what know what? We don't, we won't even pay you. Just take an indefinite period off.

And you know what? Don't even come back. Ever. Come to think of it. So Jordan, I want to hear about your experience with, with, with burnout. How does it manifest itself in you? And like, what has been triggering that feeling lately? So the key phrase that I always associate So the key phrase that I always associate

or the key word that I always associate with burnout is guilt. Okay. That, I mean, there's a lot of things in my life that make me feel guilty. I feel like I default to guilt whenever I'm annoyed about something or stressed out about something.

I take it on as like a personal burden and or like that I am a personal burden to others. Oh God, I'm sick. I've screwed people over. Oh God, I'm too tired to go out. I have to cancel plans. Like that kind of thing yeah it often accrues a lot of guilt debt yeah yeah guilt debt dude i i know what you mean yeah it's it's and it's i can't think of a less functional way of responding to something for the brain thanks a lot brain yeah i'm already feeling

bad about the thing and also you kind of screwed that up didn't you like i know brain yeah you don't need to tell me that i'm fundamentally bad as well as cancel the thing. I do. My brain does that so often. Like every time, like even making this decision, I felt like I was being selfish and I felt bad because I thought I was being too selfish to like take my own well-being into account. Yeah. Imagine that. You know, I described that seriously to my therapist and

they were like what are you talking about how did you get in here i'm not your therapist please leave my house never come back um that was your boss that was your manager right yeah um but yeah the reason i mentioned that is because i don't think it's too important to dive into like the minutiae of why i'm stressed out i mean a huge part of me feels very privileged to be stressed out in the way that i am stressed out right i'm stressed out because the job that i adore is very intense right now yeah yeah very intense because we're working really hard you know it's ultimately positive yeah yeah i think i had made the same mistake that uh you referenced before which is effectively that i value all of these things that are in my life i'm just not doing the things that rejuvenate me the things that pay off my uh

was it the emotional debt yeah or you're not cleaning house i'm not cleaning house like not cleaning house james classic sir boys mistake yeah yeah which itself generates additional guilt because i think to myself i literally did a podcast episode about this how am i fucking this up again that's like that's a weirdly recursive guilt spiral too because you're now guilty about being guilty and it's just like oh well you felt guilty so you didn't like go out and do a thing for your friend and now you feel guilty that you didn't do the thing for your friend way to go yeah and now wow you're just like a sad sack and then you're like feel guilty about that you can't get anything

done because you're too busy like auditing alliting all the guilt. Yeah, you're trying to collect guilt taxes. Trying to get at least some payoff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go to prison. It's Jordan's Tortured Matter 4. It's back. Go directly to jail. Yeah, that part's not an analogy.

That's that leaf right now. But yeah, ultimately, you know, without diving into the details, because I think they'll be boring to most listeners, I have been, yeah, the work stress has ultimately led to a lot of flakiness on my side, a lot of cancelling plans, a lot of delaying events, which in and of itself, I think is a bad choice. Because a lot of the things that I've cancelled, while initially probably would have been a struggle to engage and to turn on, to activate, were pretty rejuvenative. I just went and saw Phantom Thread a a couple nights ago oh yeah which was surprisingly hard it was like really hard to get like okay be an adult you're not on your laptop you're not working you're walking around you're wearing a coat you're laughing with your friends getting

to that point oh my god that was me trying to go to practice it was like you're gonna have fun you're gonna laugh your own parent telling you to go to school. You're going to laugh. You're going to see your friends. It's going to be a good time. And I was like, but I just want to be in bed. But also counterpoint, not do that. Yeah, yeah. Counterpoint, what if you did nothing?

The tricky thing about nothing is that it's so accessible all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd be like if you're addicted to cigarettes and your fingers were cigarettes. It's like, but I can do nothing always. Yeah, it's like if you're addicted to lollipops and your fingers were lollipops. You're like, well, don't lick them. They just can't go away. Technically, I start every day in bed.

So it's a really tricky way to go, oh, God, this again. But yeah, ultimately feeling more positive as of today. I think tomorrow, only really taking half the day as a personal day, but I think that's a good decision, especially since I want to grind on some of this creative stuff. And all of our super fans will be DMing us and shouting at Jordan and saying,

where's the thing? You said you'd make the thing. Yeah. Where's the video essay, Jordan? How do you decide when you're doing too much? Like, I think probably a lot of people listening are like, I'm experiencing burnout, I think. I don't know.

And sometimes you don't know until it's already happened to you. And I think the only reason I am privy to it now is because I felt it before. But how do you know when too much is too much? So for me, there's a couple very clear signifiers that are the result of it happening in the past. Right. And me cleaning house, addressing it in the past, and then changing my behavior. So I have like these schemas. I have like schematics on how to fix right yeah yeah doing an all-nighter is one of them that's something i used to do in college a lot i don't sleep really very well yeah

i never have so as a result sometimes uh especially if i'm anxious or a little burned out it will affect my sleep even more so i'm just lying in bed feeling guilty about feeling guilty about not sleeping oh my god yeah so the best way to address that is something like this just fuck it just don't sleep just get shit done feel positive go to bed exhausted and fulfilled right that's a nice way of addressing it but to take away like my own personal experience because that's not very helpful for people just be like i don't know just know know that it's happening um for me i spot it most often and it's easiest to track when i identify what like percentage of my time i feel uncomfortable and am i enjoying

things that i would otherwise feel rejuvenate me right yeah like the hanging out with friends thing you love hanging out with friends i love hanging out with friends yeah why are we hesitating about it yeah it's because external stimuli is convincing us that we're not ready for that or like we can't handle that we have to be on yeah when ultimately if you do it tactfully and you make sure that you have some rest in between it will do a lot for you it'll make you feel a lot better yeah yeah so i don't know yeah do an audit do an emotional audit people listening and even if you don't think you're entering burnout maybe you've just been living in burnout there's always more balance that you can you know find i i think for me i knew i knew because of when things start to fall

through the cracks um or when i'm starting to lose a handle on the things I'm trying to do. It really boiled to a head recently when I was talking to a friend and they called me out on not being there for them about something. Oh, shout out to that friend. That's baller. Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was just like, fuck. You're right.

Yeah. And I started to realize how I deal with the situations where I feel overwhelmed, which is to retreat and to try and recharge my energy in any way that I possibly can. If this were like, my energy meter is depleted. And so instead of going out, I'm like, no, no, I don't know when I'll see the inside of my room again. I need to be I need to charge my energy. I got to soak it up. Yeah. So it'll be like, oh, hey, do you want to do something?

And I'm just like, I can't. I can't because I need to soak up this energy because who knows when I'll have this opportunity again. Because anything could happen. Yeah. Because all these things keep coming up and it's so hard to like be prepared for them and i think that i'll explode if i like get caught off guard by like a thing that i have to do when i don't have like the right energy for it i think you just identified a really effective way of doing that audit as well don't go solo if you have a support network or even just a couple of people you genuinely trust

get them to contribute to the audit because if they're spotting that you're being like unreliable or you're being a little more down or you're not being as emotionally engaged, chances are, you know it. Yeah. I've had people casually mention that they see me as really busy and it's like, I feel busy, but I never felt like, oh, you're like always busy. I'm like, interesting. And I don't even know that I'm busy so much. And then I think about how I spend my time and it's like, sure, I'm doing stuff sometimes, but then other times I'm literally just like sitting in bed and like doing nothing.

And I'm like, oh, I'm either working or trying to recharge to work. And that means that I'm never available. Yeah, there's no neutral. There's no neutral, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're rolling hills. And so I'm trying to make more space in my life for that because there used to be that. I think I used to have more chill.

And I think I've lost some of my chill. Yeah, you used to be like a cool guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You used to be like a nice, likable guy. And then I got high. That's a weird lyric. It's like, used to be a nice, likable guy that was able to balance my day-to-day activities. And then I got high.

And it helped yeah a lot of the examples he talks about in that getting high wouldn't necessarily be the worst idea now you've caught me in area where i'm not super educated i don't know many of the lyrics other than the structure of the song being i needed to do something and then i got high which implies that i was no longer able to do that thing well he's got to go to work he's got to go to school right but then and get this okay what a twist okay he did some weed oh damn he freaking ate a whole weed or whatever i don't know how it works he marriage when we going to cut that out. Before we cut out. Yes.

Because it feels like we've entered a natural crescendo. Yeah. What do we feel homework wise for the, what did we call them? The emotional perverts. We're not going to call them that. The homework is to maybe share us your stories of how you've taken stock of your life and work and the things that you value and made changes. Yeah. Not even much accountability for this week's homework.

I think just do it. Even if you don't feel like you might be a little burned out, maybe you have those people in your lives going, seems like I'm really busy all the time. And then you're like, oh, shit, I guess I am. Yeah, yeah. You can adapt adapt you can get comfortable with it and that's not necessarily a bad thing but it's worth being aware of absolutely you think that there is something that you could either distance yourself from or do more of or drop or engage more with you should you should at least explore that opportunity and also second homework keep me on my fucking toes about the video oh my god i i will do it many times just myself yeah it's funny like i i said all this stuff but like i ran from work to get here i needed you to order

me food so that i could eat before i head to a thing after this like oh my god i didn't even realize how completely yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's uh these times should be becoming less and less frequent now that i've sort of started to make changes, but. I think it's very telling that I didn't even identify that until you said that right now. I was like, oh yeah, Jarvis, he just needs to be ordering food

because he's running to my home. Right, that's Jarvis. Yeah, that's what he does. He's running to my home and this is his only window to eat. I see. And do a podcast that he has to edit in like 24 hours, great.

So yeah, no, so we had a doctor appointment and then work and then he edited some photographs and then he did, it's like, it's like all, I did like six things this morning before I went into work. And it's like, I was already tired when I got to work this morning. But it's. But we're more consistent with sad boys. We're more consistent with sad boys and we're doing it even though I'm tired and frankly,

a little burned out still, but I'm going on vacation. Hopefully we won't miss a week. Maybe we'll uh queue up an episode for when i'm gone record something this weekend maybe and uh and i'm gonna try to you know clean house i think that my vacation is gonna be um cleaning house is gonna be one of my goals and spending time with a good boy russell yeah and spending time with my friend russell who lives in new york now i'm gonna try to not stress out about making a video if one happens cool if one doesn't yeah and they do sometimes just happen

without you trying sometimes like oh fuck you wake up it's just on the floor of your bedroom yeah yeah well i mean like my last video didn't involve me waking up and i was like who turned on the camera i guess i'll make this video i guess it's time to be fun um shout out people should go check out your new video hey thanks man what's it called where do i find it it's called uh another day in the life of a software engineer and it's kind of a mockumentary uh video you lambasted a good friend of yours uh kind of messed up she's in on the joke she's in on the joke she's in on the video in fact it's a sweet sad boys alum maiko yeah so uh my co appears in my newest video does some acting um people on youtube don't get it uh no i i think a lot of people do get it uh but some people are like so you're going to work at 11 a.m so you don't do any work someone commented uh you turn the most important part of

this video into a joke these people must be a riot to watch The Office with. Michael Scott is such a bad manager. They don't take work seriously. One star. Take the stapler out of the jelly. That's disgusting. I would not want to be your co-worker, Jim Halpert. Jim. Inner office romance?

That's so unprofessional. As always, you can reach us on Twitter at Sad Boys Pod and on Twitter at Sad Boys Pod and on Facebook at Sad Boys Pod. Consistency, baby! Yes. Personally,

you can reach me at Jarvis on Twitter. And you can hit up the kid at Jordan A-D-I-K-A. That's Jordan Adika. Jordan Adika.

And you can find your social media handle at whatever it is, I assume. Yeah, you can find it at, you know, whatever you decided it was At enter handle And you should follow us

And you should send us messages through our DMs Because we read them all and we reply to all of them And you should do it I promise that if you send us a DM, we will reply to it Kaboom And it'll be immediate and it'll be very long Six paragraphs, Jarvis will write it Where did that contract come from?

How did you even sign in, blood? blood so as always let us say we love you and we sorry boom bit of a weird one i yeah i dig it it's a weird consistency consistency We'll see you next time.