Activism and Life Balance
Is there really such a thing as an overload of peace making work?
Most active peace makers are heavily involved in planning events such as marches, rallies, and teach-ins. But is there a point when enough is enough?
Planning and taking part in peace making events is a source of hard work and joy for peace activists. There is a sense of accomplishment, of value, and importance in reaching the goal of peace. However, as anyone who has been involved in the movement for any substantial length of time can tell you, it is also a lot of hard work. Work which is often in addition to one's regular job, filling up what little spaces are left in one's schedule on weekday nights and on weekends.
Burn-out is a common affliction. It can be characterized by a gradual withdrawal from organizations and friends in the movement, constant tiredness, and and eventually break from the movement altogether. In what is often a small and fragmented community, many hands indeed make lighter work, and dedicated, motivated individuals are needed more than ever. We can't afford to lose fine people to burn-out.
Here are some suggestions to avoid burn-out either in yourself, or your colleagues:
- Make sure you give yourselves plenty of time to plan events. Most people do not understand what kind of work goes into these things, until they themselves get involved. You need to time for meetings, time to book the needed facilities and get permits, make signs and materials, and do publicity work and postering.
- When an event has concluded, take some time to relax and enjoy yourselves. Activists have a tendency to get all moody and serious all the time. Even people doing important social justice work need to entertain their lighter sides.
- Always be actively recruiting people to get involved. More people means more task delegation, and less of a chance only a few people are going to get saddled with the majority of the work.
- Plan events strategically. If there are two other actions in the same week you are planning yours, perhaps you would consider adjusting the date. In most cases, you are competing for the same group of people -- and people can also get burned out on attending too many events.
Bear in mind that there is also the concept of "too much of a good thing." When something big is going on -- a crisis situation in a specific part of the world, for example -- it is easy to start to overload the calendar with event after event. But this strategy can reduce the overall effectiveness of such a campaign. The crowd will eventually thin out as time goes along, and the media will be bombarded with the same story over and over again. Plus, there is a the risk of bunr-out for the planning committee, as should be obvious by now.
Keep up the hard work, and make it good work.
