Prevention of Burnout: Love is Infinite Fuel.

November 12, 2017 Burnout - Depression, Love & Relationship No Comments

Love is a fire that never gets extinguished by burning.

Speaking about ‘love’ as the feeling that very deep inside, something or someone is very deeply meaningful to you… Yes, the L-word. So seldom used in business, yet so all-important for… even the bottom line, dearest shareholders among you readers. Also talking to you, dear politicians.

How many employees love their occupation? According to Forbes, there is quite a lot of room for improvement. Most are not really engaged at work.

Tell me, how can one be really engaged (of any sort) if one doesn’t love?

Is anyone guilty for not loving? I think that’s an oxymoron to the highest degree.

Is anyone responsible for not loving? That’s already much more to the point. Responsibility without guilt. If someone doesn’t love (his job, for instance) then that person cannot be forced to do so. And because he doesn’t love it, it’s also difficult for him to open up to it. Does that seem like a hopeless situation?

It is hopeless indeed! But only if you think in clear-cut terms of control.

And that is what a big part of Western culture is evolving towards: more and more control. In a way, this makes sense. Every part of modern life becomes more complex: more choices, more information and knowledge, more dangerous situations at work, life and play, more competition for people’s attention and direct motivation to consume, more individual possibilities for good or bad… This complexity appears to need a lot of control or it gets out of hand. The problem is that in all this, people themselves get controlled to the core. This is nothing new. It has been around for as long as culture itself. At present however, it increases in a hyperbolic fashion.

Then what’s love got to do with it, this ‘second-hand emotion’?

Quite a lot of course. You cannot control love. You cannot control the core of one’s inner being… without him losing this same thing that is intended to be controlled. A huge urge for direct control is a main cause for people not being engaged, not loving their job, burning out.

Bottom line: many trillions of dollars wasted. And that is not even the main effect.

The main effect is upon humanity itself, which is at present suffering from an inner climate change as well as an outer one. There is much pain.

So, what we arrive at, succinctly put: 1) Control is more and more needed, necessary even, and present. And 2) Control quenches the fire of love and thus engenders boundless burnout. It seems as simple as it is (in theory). The solution is equally simple:

Do control the borders of the fire. Do not control the fire itself!

Theoretically simple. In practice, this requires really good insight into ‘the fire’: human motivation in depth, meaningfulness, human ‘love’. At least now we know the direction. It can only be this one.

Cherish the fire. Fuel the fire. Invite the fire. Let It be an ‘eternal flame’. Ask all your co-workers what motivates them deep inside. This ain’t easy. It requires true coaching, not the coaching of many fluffy techniques.

Forget fluffy techniques. See. Be. Motivate people. Love people.