burnt out

we went over stages of life, lots of generalizations--i know this will never apply to everyone. there will always be exceptions to the rules, which is why i like psychology so much. it's flexible and acknowledges how imperfect the science is. anywho i am focused on adulthood and major crises and events that are supposed to occur during this period. (i think this is based on American adults, i am sure other cultures will have other guidelines for this) there's not much said about young adulthood except this is the time where a concrete sense of identity should be constructed. I'm saying should because not all of us get there. According to James Marcia there are 4 stages of Identity Statuses:

Identity Forclosure: (teens - early 20s) unquestioned acceptance. adopted values of a culture or expectations of parents. does not achieve independent identity, highly affected by culture and religion

Identity Moratorium: (early 20s) try on different roles (volunteer, part-time jobs, switch jobs or majors often), struggle with sense of identity, but the more you try the more you will find out who you are.

Identity Diffusion: a failure to integrate a sense of self, not struggling to resolve identity conflicts

Identity Achievement: (lates 20s, early 30s until death) successful commitment to set of beliefs and values, cognitively flexible and a higher level of moral reasoning. It is the preferred identity status.

Identity Foreclosure is worse than Diffusion. Following preset life rules like a sheep is no way to live. Questioning, acceptance and balancing conflicting beliefs is vital!

So with the being burnt out thing--this usually occurs during middle adulthood, the definition is vague, but it applies to those who are 'the job', and have nothing else to define themselves at the end of the day. This was my problem when I started working with young children. I felt like I had to save them from uninformed parents or caregivers who were not educated enough. Even though people who work with trauma, the disabled, or emotionally challenged have a faster rate of being burnt out, i understand now that there needs to be a balance, and there needs to be things outside of my job that define me.

This can also be applied to parents when their children leave and/or start their own families. When a child is born, the next 20 years of a parent's life is devoted to him or her. The problem with that is there was a preexisting relationship that still needs nurturing and growth. After all this energy is spent raising a child and he leaves, the house is left with two middle-aged people who have to relearn who each other are. This can also result in the "empty nest syndrome" where parents have a second honeymoon and they rekindle their relationship, travel, and appreciate one another in a new light. Parents may also not adjust well to their children leaving by manipulating with money or emotions, any method possible to have their children back home and becoming a helicopter parent.

In terms of quality of life with work, and adjusting to children leaving the home, there needs to be a balance and understanding of what is acceptable behavior for the individual. Parents need to be reminded that their first love was their partner before the child, and that relationship needs attention and growth too. People who work with trauma need to be reminded that the job is not the only thing that defines you, if you take your work home, it's setting yourself up for a quicker burn out and degradation in your overall quality of life.

anger towards other groups

So, a peer is riled up over certain coworkers celebrating a holiday during the workweek. I've been there--especially in an elementary school setting, everyone doubles up on their work load and it can get pretty chaotic. He's asking why can't they celebrate during the weekend. Well, if only all holidays were like that. I mean, we have 'Winter break" where people mislabel it Christmas break, and no one complains about that. I don't know. It's been so long where I've felt anger or identified character traits with an ethnic group, that instead of feeling offended, I'm trying to understand the reasons for why a person could get that upset at a group of people, not just certain individuals. I know it's about generalizing past experiences to similar stimuli (lol people are stimuli), but since I'm not at that stage of life where the anger lingers outwards to others instead of the internal questioning to understand and eliminate the maladaptive behaviors, I would like to be reminded of how the thought process works and 'evolves'.

Why and how could a person be so emotionally damaged that they develop and believe these stereotypes? There are numerous paths to being: there's the genetic factor that is activated by environment, there is the cultural path where certain cultures have such inherent beliefs that stereotypes can be taught as normal ways of seeing the world (and it can go unquestioned an entire life), illusory causation--there's the conditioned views where someone of a certain group mistreats you and over time you believe this to be true, so when it happens again it confirms your belief even though 99.9% of people in that same group have been kind to you in this lifetime. 99.9% yes, I exaggerate. I mean, it can develop in a bajillion methods. Who really knows? I'd like to post a child's and Early Child Development's definition of fair, though.

For children, fair means: Everyone gets the same.
For Human Development and ECE: Everyone gets what he or she needs.

I've truly come to understand this only through working with children with special needs. Some kids will need more time to develop their motor skills if they live in a neighborhood where parks aren't safe to play in, or if parents are in low SES where they need to work constantly so their children have no time to go outside. Other kids will be fine because they have access to more. I think this can be applied to adults with understanding that we're not equal in terms of what is fair. If a religious group has a holiday during the work week, good for them! An extra day off, but sometimes it would be nice to respond instead of reacting to others getting something you wish you had. I understand the calendar year is too short to acknowledge all holidays, but I don't know if most people want to have a day of repent instead of work if it weren't a tradition.

I acknowledge that it's a burden for others to work 150% when coworkers are off, but I would also like to see a movement towards understanding as well.