You won’t accomplish anything worthwhile ever if avoidance of burnout, work, or fatigue is your north star.

In manic episodes of bipolar disorder, the patient doesn’t exhibit signs of excessive energy only. It is associated with that amount of energy being totally not under control, misdirected, useless, and unhelpful. They do nothing with it. They accomplish nothing with it. No progress whatsoever. Nothing ever takes place or gets done in the manic or hypomanic phase of the bipolar disorder. It is not a disorder that enhances creativity or productivity some of the time or most of the time, until they crash and burn out of exertion or exhaustion. It’s like burning fuel at the highest rate without using any of that fuel at all. Without moving the vehicle. Nothing took place aside from the fuel being consumed. That’s not spending energy, that’s wasting it. And that’s why it’s a disorder, and it’s debilitating.

Narcissism isn’t about being so amazing you’re looking down on everybody else and you’re so arrogant and special you treat everybody else poorly because you’re better than them. It’s when you have no evidence whatsoever to back those claims of superiority up. There’s nothing that can indicate that you’re better than anyone at anything ever. It’s like, I’m so special and unique I’m better than everyone else on the face of the earth, because I said so, without there being any reason that can support any of the reasons why you believe you’re better than anyone. Sometimes you can be really good at something, but you can’t provide evidence for it in order to prove your competence to anyone else. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You know you’re really good. You just don’t know how to prove it to the rest of the world. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s only narcissistic when you cannot provide evidence that matches your claims of superiority, even if you wanted to. You can’t provide evidence, not because obtaining evidence of your competence is hard or unattainable at this point, but because you really are not that great, or you’re not as competent, special, amazing, good, skilled, talented, knowledgeable, or intelligent as you claim to be, or as you think you really are. Your greatness doesn’t exist. You only think it does, because you’re delusional. There has to be an element of psychosis when it comes to narcissism. You will find yourself having to move mountains in a perpetual futile attempt to hide the fact that you really are nothing on the inside. Everything has to be catered toward pandering to the delusional narrative that you’re so special and unique, no one is really like you, even though this is the exact opposite of the truth. That’s why they have to convince you that they’re objectively better than you in every way there is as if their life depends on your opinion of them or your feedback or perspective, because they have no and can never have or provide any evidence to support their claims of superiority. The only evidence they can ever have or get for their claims of being better than you in any way or at anything is your empty words. There can never be any evidence for how great they are other than your belief in their superiority and unmatched competence and greatness. Arrogance on its own does not necessarily mean you’re narcissistic. It’s just an indication of overconfidence.

So you’ve developed an association between energy and mania that would eventually lead to exhaustion and depression without ever accomplishing anything, and an association between being great, competent, or confident enough with being a bad person. And you think you’d be better off never giving in to your energetic creative impulses, working every day on your passion until fatigued, or using achievement as evidence for your competence or as a source for having a solid foundation for your self-esteem and self-confidence. It’s one thing to feel useless because you haven’t achieved something worthwhile in a while, to the extent that you have to keep working yourself to death just to prove a point, mostly to other people, who will only hate you more if you presented something to them that shows you’re more successful, and another thing to feel the need to keep working more, just to stay in shape, and remain as successful, strong, intelligent, competent, skilled, talented, wise, capable, powerful, knowledgeable, or great as you think you are or as you think you could, deserve to, or supposed to be. To live up to your full potential. To become what you’re truly capable of. To become what you’re truly meant to be. To become fully yourself. To become who you really are. To become alive.

But you think life is all about relaxing and never ever getting tired, even as a result of doing something meaningful that you’re passionate about or obsessed with, and only feel alive when you do it, it feels like a crime against nature not to do it all the time.

Your fear of the dark side is why you’ll end up joining it in the end. Like Anakin, your fear of losing your loved one is why you lost them. Your fear of exhaustion is why you’re leading an unfulfilling life.

“You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness! You were my brother Anakin! I loved you!” – Obi-Wan Kenobi