Burn Out Introduction

I do not know why but I am doing a bit of a study on burn out at the moment.  I have experienced it decades ago, and see enough of it in more recent times to know it is not pretty.    As someone said “Burnout is hard to recognize, and it doesn’t go away on its own.” 
We shall see how all this pans out, but it may be over several postings.  I always post between 400-600 words.  For some, two words is two too many, but I never want something I write to be endured rather than enjoyed.  That is the goal anyway.  I am wanting to relate my own taking on things, define burn out, give some signs and relate how others have dealt with it.
I have volunteered in a few organizations.  Organizations rightly feel I know my own mind well enough, and accept my word without question.  To me that is understandable and right.  Often they are wanting to facilitate, and we have mutual goals.  Mostly it matters not if I am already involved big time.  I will do it.  That need is met.
There is though, a big difference to me between enthusiasm and obsession.  I need to be enthusiastic.  I need to think that what I am doing or involved in is totally worth my pursuit. 
What gets me though is so often it is all or nothing.  Reminds me of a speed boat.  It leaves at a great rate of knots.  Further along, it is past by everyone.  It ran out of petrol.  People can be like that.  Instead of filling the need long term they do so until they run out of petrol.  What was everything, becomes nothing.  They burn out.
Some just go for it from the start and that is great.  I was not one of them.  It has only been in the last few decades I have known what I wanted, and in my opinion gone about it the right way.  It has helped that I think “do it now,” as it has enabled me to do more.  As they say, “better late than never.”  I really do not want to be one of those people where it is asked “whatever happened to so and so?”
I did not know what I wanted.  Some do.  I had to work it out.  Going for it though was a learning curve, as I did not have the balance right.  I was a speed boat.  When I got more petrol I would head off in another direction.  And then another.
So much seemed and was good.  I don’t reckon though that that is enough.  It may be good, but it has to be good for me.  Even having established something was good for me, I still needed the balance to be right.  The last few decades have on the whole been better.  Work was important.  My wife is important.  Church is important.  Sport is important.  But nothing should be an obsession.  One of my favourite sayings is “spiritually natural and naturally spiritual.”
The thing I have discovered is I need to look out for me.  Others can and do, but not like I do, and besides, they are busy looking out for themselves.  I need to be careful that what I offer is born of balance, not obsession, and is in all our best interests.
I know what I do not want, and what I want.  Me burning out benefits no one in the long term.  That is one of those “do not want” things.