Stefan Bowers

Americans have earned a reputation for being soft.

We watch videos online of people being bombed. Or civilians staring up at a naked sky while drones swarm overhead. We eat the stress and move on with our day.

We love to eat—nowadays more than ever.

Truth is we’re not soft. Our lives are consumed with stress. We’re defined by it. It’s the prime-mover of our work, and our appetites.

And we take it. We down it like beers at a friend of a friend’s BBQ.

In the beginning it doesn’t feel like much.

But it builds. Growing like a quiet beat inside you, tethered to your fight-or-flight instincts—growing louder by the day until it moves from your controlled center to your entire being.

By the time you realize it’s consumed you—it’s too late.

Burnout.

Burnout is real.

I used to think burnout was an expression. A catchphrase for pressure.

When I was a young sous chef I’d repeat the poetry of a now fairly unknown beat poet named John Giorno.

The title of his book was You Got To Burn To Shine.

My dad gave me this book in the late nineties and I devoured it.

It was manic. An ode to catching fire. To self-immolation through urgency, intensity—all-out high-voltage living and working.

His words soared off the page in a repetitive chant, pushing your psychology deeper into the fires of your own mind.

I would push myself at work repeating the lines—
Burn, burn, burn—push past the burn—burn until you explode into flames. Don’t worry about it. Work until you burst into flames.

And I did.

I completely burned out in 2007.

And I haven’t been the same since.

It’s never gone away.

I went to a place I could never return from, consumed by my own fire.

I thought I was made of the right stuff—one hundred percent flame-retardant material. That I would come out the other side clean.

Wrong.

Ever since I’ve struggled every day of my career. Fighting for my life to do what I do.

The problem is burnout doesn’t mean you’re done. It’s not the end. Many of you reading this are in burnout right now. Or past it. Surviving on the fumes of your own exhaust.

Over the last twenty years kitchens have become far more considerate and sympathetic to the emotions of its employees. But professional cooking will never be without stress. Immense pressure will always drive its stakes into your restaurant grounds and set up camp on your nervous system.

I opened five restaurants under burnout. Each one taking me deeper into an endless field of flames. I ran from the heat by avoiding tasks. Or waiting until I was backed into a corner with nowhere to run. At the last moment finding a window to jump out of, running with the fire at my back.

There’s no escape.

I don’t have much advice on how to deal with it.

The only thing I can offer is that you must protect yourself before you reach this point. If you’re throwing everything you have at your work, take a moment to ask yourself if you’re throwing yourself away in the process. Take a hard look at your behavior and ask yourself if you feel healthy. If what you’re doing is leaving nothing but ashes around you.

Please talk to someone. Not other line cooks. Not going out drinking till you squelch the flames with booze while swapping stories of misery. Talk to your parents, a psych, or fuck, even your dog. Get a haircut—its bro-science but from personal experience it’s helped me. Try and get away from the source and look for honesty in those that can’t relate. Go outside of yourself, so you’re not in an echo chamber.

Most of all, recognize when burnout is at the door. Because once it lets itself in, it never leaves and you’ll be stuck the rest of your life feeding it.

And that bitch is hungry.