Fighting Burnout & Finding Fulfillment

A young man, seeking, approaches Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus looking upon the young man loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go and sell what you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)

A young woman was hopeful that her latest endeavor as a life-coach for physicians and nurses, burnt out and disillusioned with modern medicine, would prove to be fruitful and rewarding for both her and her clients.

Though only in her mid-thirties, this young woman—a respected and accomplished doctor herself—was stepping away from the occupation that had been her life-long dream. Somehow, somewhere along the way, modern medicine had evolved along with its cousin, big pharma, into big medicine. It had become more about money, procedure, and protocol than serving and caring for the health and healing of people. This reality struck her—and those driven by the desire to serve—hard. Fighting the system and advocating for the patients had caused burnout and frustration. Perhaps she could serve them, and indirectly their patients, by being their life-coach.

As the young doctor shared her new plan, my lack of enthusiasm upon hearing it must have been evident. While I made a half-hearted attempt to sound encouraging, the reality was that I had already seen this movie too many times. People with good hearts and good intentions try to help one another, but ultimately their effort is expended, and they end up frustrated and burnt out, carrying unfulfilled dreams, having brought little satisfaction or true solutions to the issue they had sought to tackle in the first place.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You don’t seem overly thrilled. What are you thinking? Be honest.”

“You will not find the answers you seek without the missing link,” I replied. In the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, I explained, the book of Ecclesiastes begins:

Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south,
and goes round to the north,
round and round goes the wind
and on its circuits the wind returns…
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

Borrowing from Pope Saint John Paul II, we may continue:

For the Old Testament, knowledge is not simply a matter of careful observation of the human being, of the world, and of history, but supposes an indispensable link [‘the missing link’] as well with faith and with what has been revealed. These are the challenges which the Chosen People had to confront and to which they had to respond.

Pondering this as his situation, biblical man discovered that he could understand himself only as ‘being in relation’—with himself, with people, with the world, and with God. This opening to the mystery, which came to him through Revelation, was for him, in the end, the source of true knowledge. It was this which allowed his reason to enter the realm of the infinite where an understanding for which until then he had not dared to hope became a possibility.

(John Paul II, Fides et ratio, 21)

The young doctor may be of lasting value to those who come to her as a life-coach, but only if she first understands that the people seeking her help have human hearts that desire ‘something more’ than this world can give them. It is the desire of the heart for infinite love and life. Once discovered, this desire is directed toward sharing what they have received freely themselves with others. Still, one must be filled with divine life and love, a free gift, before it can be shared. We cannot give this gift if we do not first possess it. The missing link is God, the source of the gift.

Dr. Gerald May was a practicing psychiatrist who also was burnt out as he grew increasingly frustrated with his inability to do more for his patients. His own tank running on empty for too long compelled him to turn to God. Thus, a portal to grace was opened. “Grace,” he wrote, “was able to flow into this emptiness, and something new was able to grow.”

Dr. May opened his book, Addiction and Grace, this way:

After twenty years of listening to the yearnings of people’s hearts, I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware if it. Or we may experience it in different ways—as a longing for wholeness, completion, or fulfillment. Regardless of how we describe it, it is a longing for love. It is a hunger to love, and be loved, and to move closer to the Source of love. This yearning is the essence of the human spirit; it is the origin of our highest hopes and most noble dreams.

The origin of our highest hopes and most noble dreams.

In his life’s work of serving others, Dr. May began to pray. His prayer life brought much fruit as he connected to “the Great Physician,” the Source of all healing and love. As he prayed, he discovered a connection to the eternal wellspring and found that he could give himself away as a gift in service to others without running on empty, for his own tank was always being filled. It was grace that ultimately made a difference, first in his life, and then in the lives of those he served.

Prayer is as natural to a human person as breathing, eating, and sleeping. For the philosopher, the poet, and every human person, prayer is a connection to awe and wonder, to all that is true, good, and beautiful. Prayer opens the individual person, body and soul, to the infusion of grace, the gift of divine life and love, which leads to the potential for human flourishing. This potential becomes efficacious when one acts upon the gift received and so becomes a sincere gift of self to others. This manifestation of love builds up the City of God, the Body of Christ, and so fulfills the very meaning and purpose of our lives. This is the Christian vocation, regardless of one’s occupation: to be a person of love.

On the other hand, the default position of the person who does not pray, who consciously or unconsciously rejects the divine gift, is a body and soul closed to the infusion of grace. One cannot give what is not first received. Lacking grace, the potential for human flourishing is diminished by sin and death. Living in “disconnection,” like a cut-flower, the human person grasps for life in a futile attempt to replace infinite grace with the finite things of this world. Human beings become ravenous creatures, lustful creatures, as all attempts to build a city upon a foundation of sin and death fail to satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart.

The human heart was made for more. That is why we pray. Infuse daily prayer into your occupation and plans, and you will discover the Christian vocation that will bear much fruit!

Hofmann, H. (1889). Christ and the Rich Young Ruler [oil on canvas]. Retrieved from Bible.Gallery.