Workaholism, Exhaustion, and Escape

The last couple of weeks have been particularly intense with work. I've gotten sucked into the fray -- it's quite an exciting time, but the quantity of work that needs to be done only seems to increase. My day-to-day has become: wake up, go to work immediately, work, working lunch, work, working dinner, work, sleep. Even on Sunday I was up until 2am making changes to the iPhone app. While exciting, I recently felt myself approaching a limit, and noticed that my ability to control my mood (and generally stay happy and calm) was eroding. Thoughts of work began to take a larger and larger share of all my thoughts, and began creeping into my dreams.

Yesterday I hit the exhaustion point. Not enough sleep, compounded with too much activity made for a particularly dreary day. Even meditation didn't help, since I was too tired to maintain focus for more than a few seconds. I slogged along just waiting for the day to end.

I slept a fair amount last night, but not enough to completely clear my exhaustion. I'm still quite tired. This morning it began again; compulsive thoughts about work creeping in, non-stop thoughts towards "getting things done" and complete lack of calm and happiness. But I had enough rest that meditation was at least possible. After just 45 minutes of sitting, I had completely cleared that feeling from my mind. I was completely free, with a deep happiness that persisted-- one that didn't depend on something work-related (no need for success, completion of projects, hitting deadlines, etc). Simply happy and full of love for everyone.

The trick was 1 - get enough sleep, but 2 - to focus on setting everything down for a moment.

I had all these thoughts about work swirling around in my head, and every time I tried to settle my attention on the breath, it went straight back to thinking about something work related. The key was to tell myself "don't worry -- you'll get back to it as soon as you're done. Just put it down for a moment, and pick it up when it's time to go back in. Trust yourself. You'll take care of it when you're done here". I had to do that several times, but I was eventually able to put everything down, and simply observe my breath. From then on, things were much easier, and I wasn't pulled back into the whirlwind of thoughts. I could focus on developing feelings of love towards others, and on observing various mental and physical phenomena. I stood up after 50 minutes, peaceful and happy. Almost unbelievable given my mental state when I started.