Here is something nobody tells you about burnout: the cure might be more work.
I know. I know. Bear with me.
For approximately 10 months I've been running on a combination of M&Ms, diet Pepsi, and whatever reserves I had left over from before. I have been burnt to a crisp and then thrown back in the oven a few dozen times. I’m so fried that the folks at KFC could probably use me in their next commercial … as the product. I barely have time (or energy) to shower.
So when a friend texted an idea that would help the Delaware Youth Center, my first instinct was to pull a blanket over my head and pretend I hadn’t seen the text. 
But then I started thinking.
My father swam in the Delaware Youth Center pool as a child growing up in Callicoon. 
I spent gleeful summer afternoons in the ‘80s running around the infamous Youth Center merry-go-round, hand clasped tightly around the metal bars to bring the contraption up to speed before hopping aboard.
My daughter hunted for countless Easter eggs on the Youth Center’s back lawn and spent countless hours making crafts inside Grover Hermann Hall.   
So I did the thing I absolutely did not want to do. I said yes.
There’s a version of this story where that yes was enough to send so much creative energy surging through my body that I burst off the couch and sprint like Roadrunner escaping Wile E. Coyote towards my computer to tackle the job.
This is not that version. 
I didn’t feel a sudden surge of energy or purpose. I felt the same low-grade exhaustion I'd been dragging around for the better part of a year. 
I said yes because I couldn't say no to a place that’s become an integral part of the fabric of my family’s story. I said yes, and then I went and did the work.
It was not easy. There were 5 a.m. wake-ups and entire weekend days spent tied to my computer and more than a few moments of wondering what exactly I had gotten myself into.
But here is what I didn't expect: somewhere around week two, working on [project soon to be revealed to the world], something shifted. Ideas started coming faster than I could write them down. 
They were the kind of ideas I hadn't had in months, the kind that make you feel like yourself again.
Burnout has a way of flattening everything out. You stop noticing what you're good at, and you stop caring, or at least you think you do. 
But then you get a text from a friend and a non-profit that needs you. 
You find yourself up before sunrise, fired up about a project and dreaming up ideas faster than you can write them down, and you think — "oh, hey, there I am."
I'm not going to tell you I'm not still tired. I am. But it's a different kind of tired.
If you've been running on empty, look around. Find your Delaware Youth Center. Give it whatever you've got left. You might be surprised what comes back.