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The Superhero Handbook
A Do-Gooder's Guide to Saving the Planet A Book in Progress by Glenn Campbell Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Production Notes This is a DRAFT document, and everything here is subject to editing. Your feedback is encouraged! FamilyCourtGuy<at>gmail.com |
Before we delve into the concepts and challenges of intervention, I want to talk about your single greatest occupational hazard—superhero burnout. It's a common story: You try desperately to save others, but the seemingly endless needs of the clientele eventually overwhelm you. You feel like you are on a treadmill, running as fast as you can but getting nowhere, until you believe you have no choice but to quit. This is such a prevalent phenomenon in the superhero field that it deserves special attention at the beginning of this course.
When superheroes burn out, they tend to blame "the system". They say: "I tried as hard as I could, but the system only got worse." Unfortunately, the system is what it is. The superhero's duty is to understand and adapt to the world as it actually is, not as he wants it to be.
If you own an airplane, you can't blame the laws of aerodynamics if it crashes. The real problem is how you designed your plane, how you maintain it and how much weight you chose to carry in it. If you try to carry too much, then you are going to crash. That's not the system's fault but yours.
The real cause of burnout is inadequate boundaries and control mechanisms. You failed to observe the capacity of your aircraft, and you exceeded it. In most cases, burnout is the result of incremental increases in your obligations, each of which seemed minor by itself but that eventually add up to an unbearable burden. It is like loading your airplane with more and more tiny pebbles, until the thing just can't fly.
Another illustration: Have you ever tried to lift a two-ton bull? Unless you possess super strength, you can't do it. It's simple physics: A 150 pound human can't pick up a 2000 pound animal, at least without external assistance.
But a bumpkin farmer might think otherwise. This is his method: He starts when a calf is first born. At that time, the animal is only about 80 pounds and can be easily picked up. Every day, the calf grows a little, and the farmer returns to pick it up again. After a couple of years, the animal is 2000 pounds, and the farmer has gradually gained the strength to lift it.
It's a nice sounding theory, but it doesn't work in real life. The farmer believes that because each daily change is insignificant by itself, in the end he can defy the laws of physics. In fact, the laws of physics can't be broken. Although it isn't clear when it will happen, one day the farmer will not be able to pick up the animal, no matter how much he has practiced.
This is a very common error among superheroes. You take on more and more obligations, day after day, and you think you can manage them, because each change is so small. Eventually, however, you can't handle the overall burden, and the system breaks down.
An extreme example of this kind of over-commitment is your neighborhood "cat lady", who adopts one feline after another because she can't bear to see little kitties suffer. In effect, she is a superhero to these animals, saving them from suffering—but at what cost?
One way or another, if she can't control her compassion, the cat lady will eventually lose control of her project. When she can't afford to feed or care for the expanding brood—or more importantly spay or neuter them—the city will have to step in to shut her down. It's the same old story of superhero defeat: The newspaper reports that over a hundred cats were found on the premises, most in poor health, and that the stench of urine was so overpowering that the house will probably have to be demolished. Although the woman was motivated only by compassion and the desire to save lives, the end result was a disaster (or cat-astrophe) for both herself and the animals, most of whom had to be killed.
When systems are pushed beyond their capacity, they tend to fail catastrophically—that is, by an uncontrolled collapse that neutralizes all capacity. The farmer trying to lift more than his own weight might break his back and lose his ability to pick up anything at all. If you overload a ferry boat, it is more likely to capsize and transport no one. Overloading any system tends to violate its usual safety mechanisms and encourage disaster.
Burnout happens when you become at least emotionally overwhelmed. You exceed your capacity to care, so end up withdrawing completely, which is essentially a catastrophic failure.
Any superhero who exceeds his own capacity places himself and his clientele at enormous risk. Routine maintenance is bypassed, and the hero loses the buffer of time and resources that are necessary for creativity and good governance. Instead of steering his ship and planning its course, he spends more and more time bailing out the bilge. The more responsibilities he takes on, the more leaks spring in the hull, and the more desperately he must pump just to keep his vessel afloat.
Although I can't tell you about my own superpowers or my personal experiences with them, I can reveal that I know this sinking feeling well. You're desperately bailing as the boat sinks lower and lower in the water, but you can't get anyone else on board to recognize the crisis. You're bailing, bailing, more and more frantically, but the passengers just call for more service. They don't know they are on the Titanic because they trust you to protect them. They still think this is a pleasure cruise because that's what you lead them to believe.
Many promising superheroes are lost to this kind of drowning. In the real world, the biggest problem is not saving people but figuring out when to stop. You can fill up the lifeboats, but not to overcapacity, or everyone will drown, but where do you draw the line? Who do you reject and prevent from getting aboard. Answering this kind of question separates the successful superhero from the well-intentioned flameout.
People in any helping profession tend to burn out for two major reasons: (1) their workload far exceeds a sustainable level, and (2) they fail to see any overall social improvement from their interventions. Both conditions are demoralizing and often lead to a catastrophic solution—i.e. quitting the field and never coming back.
Flying around the world saving people can get tired after a while, especially when you always see more who need to be saved. If people are in just as much peril as when you started your campaign, it is easy to get frustrated. "Why am I doing this?" you ask. You can frantically bail for years, but this isn't a happy or sustainable position. Even superheroes have to come up for air sooner or later.
Overcommitment is the kryptonite of most superheroes. It isn't so much that the outside world defeats them but that they defeat themselves by not recognizing the nature of the outside world. The needs of the world are essentially infinite and will always defeat you if you don't establish firm boundaries and defenses against them. These aren't always pleasant boundaries, and sometimes you have to be cruel. You may have to reject a helpless kitten or child to protect those you already have.
No matter how you approach it, you can't pick up a two ton-bull. The theory that you can absorb incremental increases indefinitely is fundamentally flawed. To prevent catastrophe and burnout, you have to continuously push back. You have to deflect most responsibilities elsewhere, so they don't rest on your shoulders. Hopefully, you can do this gently, but if you have to be rude, that's better than making no decisions at all.
You don't want to be the superhero who broke his back, who made commitments he couldn't keep and who left the world worse as a result.
Continued in Chapter 7
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