A HOLIDAY WON'T CURE YOUR BURNOUT

but it might help you realise what will

Before I did the job I do now, I was an actor and writer, working mostly in theatre. I did that for ten years, to limited and brief success. I was living on roughly £21k a year in London, which as you might imagine was barely surviving, never thriving. The financial stress I felt, coupled with a tumultuous dating life and an ever present fear I wasn’t where I “should” be in life, had me in a choke hold of anxiety and distress. To combat this, I looked for ways to find more calm in my life, spending more time offline, reading and being outside. So to help with all of this, and take one of the external voices telling me I wasn’t good enough, I would periodically delete all social media for months at a time. Whenever I did this, I would feel an instant sense of relief, a loosening in my chest and a wide open expanse of free time before me. While it was mildly inconvenient for social plans and sharing of information, it would largely be a real success and when I was feeling in a stronger state of mind, having been reminded of the value of a quiet night in with a book, I would take a deep breath and redownload it. After accidentally creating a career for myself that partially exists and is fuelled by the internet, I’ve felt unable to delete the apps for the last two and a half years - until now.