Premature Blogging Burnout & Its Spiritual Counterpart

It has only been 2 weeks, and yet I am struggling with my postings already. I have deleted two posts today. Partly because I was interrupted and lost the momentum in the ideas. I have kept the other topic in my pc and may complete the posting in future as it got too long.

Whatever it is I am beginning to feel fatigue - in trying to get the ideas formed out and laid down correctly in this post. Is it a case of waning interest ? Am I getting sluggish and refuse to get out of my comfort zone ? Just too plain busy ? I think I am beginning to show signs of what is known as blogging burnout. In trying to further understand this syndrome, I went deep and far into the cyberworld..okay just Googling the words "blogging burnout". It gave me 41,000 results. So it is a common and universal infection that bugs bloggers the whole wide cyberworld. At least I know I'm not alone. But then.... only within 2 weeks, that must be a record somewhat.

One thing I realise is that I jumped onto this blogging band-wagon a bit too rush. I mean maybe I should have read those tips on good blogging, how to blog effectively, how to sustain the moment, etc. ( Okay I found a good article on how to avoid blogging burnout from ezine@rticles.)

But on hindsight I think it did me some good. At least it forces me to explore the internet for some good stuff and in the process discover things which I would never have got if I am not in this situation. The other thing is that it gets me into thinking about a similar syndrome which I term as "spiritual burnout". A few weeks back, a collegue of mine posed this question to me during one of our lunch conversations,"How could we sustain our spiritual state of awaken ?". She said that for her it is quite hard(she comes from a different spiritual culture and faith). I must say that like good things it takes greater discipline to maintain a momentum of activities after we begin doing them.

Looking at my ownself, at times I feel like I've reached a stage of plateau in my spiritual journey. This is when I feel that I could do with that extra boost of "spiritual hormones" to continue with the prayers, contemplation and meditation. If not, all those exercises are in danger of becoming a habit forming practices i.e. you perform them because that is what you have been doing all this time! My teacher has warned us of this syndrome. Or worse, the idea of going down the path of the dark side maybe tempting. It will come slowly and subtly. Okay just do the required prayers, no need to do the optional ones, you are just tired -whispers the evil ones into my ears. You are tempted to indulge into backbiting, gossiping .... astghafirullah(may God forigve my sins)! I also remembered the words spoken by the Prophet (peace be upon him) which has the following message - the heart of man is a constant battleground between the angelic voices and the evil whisperings of the devil.

It is at this point of the burnout stage that I need some external push - get that good advice or counsel. For the blogging burnout - a hunt of good articles from an internet search to delve into while reading the books written by sufi masters would provide that much needed inspiration for my spiritual journey.

O Lord! Please help me to hold steadfast to the rope of Your Religion. Fill my heart with Your Pure Light of Love and Embrace me in Your Most Bountiful Grace.