Burnout and freediving
In freediving a shallow water blackout is when you almost complete your dive, but as you approach the surface, you run out of oxygen (hypoxia) and lose consciousness.
One of the dangerous paradoxes about the sport is that, at depth the diver actually feels sufficiently oxygenated but as he approaches the surface this oxygenation proves to be partly illusory.
The reason for this is that the diver’s lungs compress upon descent, the partial pressure of oxygen increases and hence there is a feeling of sufficiency. Upon ascending, the lungs expand and there is suddenly a much lower partial pressure of oxygen to go around.
I think there is an interesting inverse parallel to the increasingly more common phenomenon of burnout at work:
Working hard and ascending the career ladder can be highly compelling. In fact, the higher we go, the more we can feel like what we’re doing is satisfying and meaningful.
But as our energy is depleted and we sober up, we come to realize that what we were doing was not nearly as meaningful as we thought and that we’ve been running on fumes for way too long.
Our body collapses and insists that we fuel up on energy before proceeding in any way, shape or form.
The only way to avoid this risk of burnout, it seems, is by finding work that is deeply aligned with our being and therefore practically effortless.
