Inevitable Disappointment

I’m looking ahead at the next few months and feeling crushed with anxiety and panic. I can smell the threat of burnout and exhaustion seeping through.

Which means some things will need to be cut. Others scaled back. A few pushed into the ever-optimistic category of future plans.

I want to do everything. I want to show up fully. I want to keep all the plates spinning and prove that I can handle it. I also want to be able to show up as a dad and husband every day.

Trying to do everything and refusing to say 'no' is what got me in a hole that I'm still trying to climb out of.

Here’s the part that’s hardest to sit with: this means someone is going to be disappointed. Maybe even upset.

I’ve spent a lot of my life organizing myself around minimizing disappointment by absorbing it, pre-empting it, internalizing it. Choosing overload over letting someone down. Choosing exhaustion over an awkward conversation.

But disappointment is inevitable. Burnout doesn’t have to be.

So this isn’t about quitting or giving up. It’s about choosing sustainability over spectacle. Reality over fantasy. A future where I’m still functional, still creative, still here.

Some things will wait. Some people won’t love that. I can sit with that discomfort, because the alternative is letting everything collapse at once.

This isn’t the easy choice.
But it might be the honest one.

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