NONPROFIT BURNOUT: IS YOUR ADVENTURE WINDOW CLOSED?

Nonprofit Burnout
by pam ashlund

PART IV - NONPROFIT EYE BURNOUT SERIES

Cross posted from a differnt perspective in my El Loro blog in the post Don't Want to Work for the Man


Don’t it always seem to go/You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone — Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell


Somethings comin’ something good…who knows? — Westside Story


I've written about Burnout (see series at end of article) before. Certainly, burnout is not unique to the nonprofit sector, but it has indirectly been on the radar recently re: the changing of the guard, the baby boomer effect of nonprofits, the "are we mentoring a group to replace our current leaders as they retire?


Who wants to talk about that? Normally not I because I still find the prospect of my own retirement (and mortality in general) depressing.


The truth is, that even now (possibly 20 years before retirement), I feel worn out. Words to the effect of “my soul is dying” come to mind. Of course I mainly have these feelings in the context of work, the daily grind, etc. “Don’t want to work for the man!” my soul cries. In answer I just offer it platitudes. “Who ever said you get to be happy”? I tell myself. Or variations: “Nobody’s really happy anyway” ”You should try life in the 15th Century before you complain”. Blah Blah Blah.


I could stay stuck in that place for quite a while. But sometimes, something comes along and SNAPS me out of it. That something was an NPR story

What follows is summarized (by which I mean "cribbed”) from the NPR story “ “Does Age Quash Our Spirit of Adventure?” by Robert Krulwich.”

Note: Must have been a great story since I found a half a dozen other bloggers doing the same summary (wish I found one of them before I cranked out mine).

The author interviewed Robert Sapolsky (now my favorite neuroscientist).

IS YOUR WINDOW CLOSED?

Robert seemed to be going thru the same thing I was, but unlike me (sticking to bitching and moaning), he decided to conduct a study. At what age do we pass from the “adventure/novelty” stage to the "routine/comfort state"?

Here are the results


  • Music – Known in the industry as “Breakthru minus 20”, this is where the 14-21 yrs are Most Open, but by age 35 “window for musical adventure is closed”
  • Food – 95% likelihood that after 39 your adventure window for new food is closed.
  • Body Piercing – 16-23 yr olds will try it; but after 23 your piercing window? Slammed shut.
Is it just that we’re loosing brain cells? Robert replied: “That is pure, pure urban myth”

Avoiding a “Horrible Debilitating State”

But instead of settling for these depressing facts, Robert turned the question on its head (and this is why I love him!). He noticed that some people do retain their sense of adventure, and some don’t. The group that do not have share two common qualities: 1) they spend a long at the same job and 2) they are good at it, they succeed (they become eminent).

The conclusion? If you want to stay open to novelty, don’t stay in the same job too long and don’t become eminent” Because IF you do, “You wind up suffering from this horrible debilitating state”. So “find the “whatever” to pick up and walk away from it”.

Good causes all.

SIDEBAR: The Work of Robert Sabolsky

His bio says his lab “focuses on three issues: a) how a ‘Neuron’ dies during aging; b) how such neuron death can be accelerated by stress; and c) the design of gene therapy strategies to protect endangered neurons from neurological disease.

FILE UNDER "DÉJÀ VU"

Last January, in my Braintangents blog post These Are the Good Old Days, I was ruminating about how we think the music we listened to in high school was the best. In the NPR story, the writer cites a quote I wish I’d thought of first: “Music achieved perfection in 1974” Homer Simpson

This article is Part IV in a series on Burnout


Technorati Tags: , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LIES PEOPLE TELL US (AND THE ONES WE TELL OURSELVES)

"I don’t understand these fundraisers, …they waste all this money…why don't they just give the money to …the sick people?" "…you know what? They don’t! They throw a party so rich people like me can spend $10,000 on a table and then they give it to the sick people!" ...that’s how it’s done ! Joan Cusack to Jennifer Aniston in "Friends with Money" Alright, let's get this over with folks: Fundraisers are a Lie! Yes that's right you heard me. A few months back, I attended a luncheon to raise funds for a school for the deaf. Yes, it was luncheon and a fashion show and a fundraiser all in one. First there was the obligatory silent auction, then (during lunch) the not-so-silent auction, and then after lunch when the plates were taken away, we were asked if we would like to purchase the Orchid Centerpieces! Hadn't they got enough from us? Let me think-No! Easy as it is to lampoon a fundraiser, that is not where I am going today. One of the ladies w...
Read more

GRAFITTI OR SOCIAL CHANGE?

Image
art institutions are a severely limited arena of reception for ideas about public issues --Robbie Conal If I can't take my coffee break, Gone is the sense of enterprise ...something within me dies. -- How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying I was born with a "Question Authority" bumper sticker metaphorically stuck on the back of my car. I grew up with that expression (and what it represents) as my moral imperative. But I've been worried lately. I've been worried because it doesn't seem to be turning out the way I thought it would. Seems a QA attitude is not necessarily conducive to civil society. It all depends on who's the authority I suppose. I seem to have the easiest time applying it to government and politics. But at what point do the concepts of "questioning" and the notion of "participating" intersect? Becoming a manager was a pivotal point in my life. A place where I had to make the transition from "hating t...
Read more

BIRTH OF A BLOG: GUERILLA MARKETING, EFFECTIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY & GOOD CONTENT WIN THE DAY

Birth of a Blog: Guerilla Marketing, Effective Use of Technology and Good Content Win the Day by pam ashlund A funny thing happened when I started using Technorati. All I wanted was a quick way to see who ( if ANYONE ) was linking to my blog. First, I had to sign up with one of these services and I picked Technorati because it was the first one I came across. Second, I then found out that I was right from the beginning, no one was linking to my site. Third, I decided to try my hand at a bit of self-marketing, which went as follows: Get my brother-in-law to link to my site Set up another dummy blog and link to myself Arm wrestle another friend to link to my site None of that had much of an impact (of course) so I moved on to some actual strategy: Add tags to my blog configuration on Technorati Add tags to my posts (this was painful and manual although I later found a script for it) Test the results - found I showed up in search engines a LITTLE bit more frequently Still no links (tap, ...
Read more