It’s not burnout you need to be afraid of. It’s not having accomplished anything in the first place.

You are buying into a nihilistic culture that pushes the narrative that you are enough and awesome already without even trying, you already have everything you need to be happy, and all your complaints and problems are in your head. And here lies all your problems.

Wait, before you start hating me, I mean you no harm.

I want you to keep doing whatever that you already do the way you are already.

But the writer and intellectual within me can’t stomach you being mad at the wrong enemy.

Having nothing to lose or having lost everything gives you the opportunity of exploring stuff without the usual panic that newbies go through because they only tread lightly. They are always testing the waters.

You are right to not be afraid of making mistakes. If you are, you will stop every now and then, perhaps even too frequently, which would signal the system in control that there’s something called doing nothing at all for a while, let’s try it. It will test that by making you lie in bed for like a week. You hit the break too frequently. That puts you in a predominantly stopping mode, not a taking action mode. Really your mind tells you: okay, if you hit the breaks one more time…

But your creativity block – if you have any – is due to a phobia of perfectionism and burnout.

You should embrace perfectionism because it’s the only thing that shifts the project or task you’re doing from rewarding into pure labor. You will be denied the entirety of the reward if your mind did not verify that the finished product was perfect. And hence, your focus on parroting the notion that it is about the journey, because you never tasted what reaching a destination really feels like for once.

This is how writing works: You have an idea that normally does not exceed a single sentence. You keep writing until you feel satisfied. And that might end up being several pages. This is a key feature to distinguish between true bred writers and content creators, who are so obsessed with cutting it short to appease a gold fish attention span audience.

You should not be afraid of burnout because it comes from not having accomplished enough, and from not having used your full potential enough, not from having been too creative or productive.

I know you need to rest. But you are afraid of getting tired before you even begin putting in the work. Finish something impressive, and then you can rest all you want.