Burnout And Bullshit
I feel compelled to begin this entry with a disclaimer of sorts. The language is a little stronger than what I typically share here, and by all accounts, this post won’t resemble the style of the three entries that came before it. Thematically speaking, it will deviate drastically, but it will still contain roughly the same amount of visual stimuli (photographs).
I don’t really have a story, in the traditional sense, to tell this time around. What I do have is a challenge. One for myself.
The intent of this post is simple: to hold myself accountable and call myself out on what Matthew McConaughey would dub as “bullshit”. (The bullshit in this instance being that of my own.)
I originally sat down at my computer, opened Lightroom, and started combing through photos for the next post when I realized I was already poking around in my 2025 archives. At first, I felt oddly proud of myself. Look at me, shrinking the gap between shooting and sharing. At last, I had made progress.
However, that feeling of accomplishment didn’t last long. It hit me pretty quickly that I only had three events to pull from in all of 2024. Three. All of which I have shared here. Once that realization settled in, I got pissed. Not at any particular circumstance. Not at time. Rather at myself.
I was pissed off at how little I shot that year. Pissed off that I once again leaned on the same tired excuse I used in my 2023 recap in which I stated that I was “adulting,” that life was just getting in the way.
Honestly, looking back, that excuse was and still is bullshit.
I wasn’t too busy. I wasn’t incapable. But I was burnt out, stressed, and truthfully just being lazy. Plain and simple. I could have picked up my camera at any point, regardless of what was going on, regardless of the weather, or how I felt. Instead, my Q2 sat. Untouched.
The numbers made that impossible to ignore. I took roughly 1,500 fewer photographs in 2024 than I did in 2023. And 2023 was already down more than 3,000 from 2022. That downward trend didn’t happen by accident. I just tried to dress it up as responsibility and fatigue because it sounded better than admitting that I had checked out. Remember, social media and the internet are all peaks, no valleys. How dare I actually share the less glamorous moments…
Again, I realize this entry is far from what I normally write, but I needed to get these thoughts out of my head and into words. Not to explain myself to anyone else, but to stop lying to myself.
This post exists so that I can’t keep saying “I didn’t create” because life got in the way. Yes, a lot has been going on—personally and professionally—and those two worlds have been bleeding into each other far more than I’d like. I’m still burnt out. I’m still stressed. And if I’m being honest, I’ve hit an impasse. However, none of that should stop me from creating, ever.
I need to keep picking up a camera, writing something down, or chasing any half-formed idea that I happen to come up with. Creating something, anything, has always helped me cut through the noise. It grounds me. It helps me regain clarity, figure out what actually matters, and identify what no longer adds value to my life.
Some of those things will be easy to shed. Others won’t. A few will take longer than I’d like. But I know, deep down, that once certain connections are severed, or bridges flat-out nuked, the relief and happiness will be hard to fully articulate.
So here we are.
An emotionally charged post that probably could have lived quietly on my hard drive, but one that sure as hell felt necessary and extremely cathartic to write. This year—2026—will be different. It already has been, even just a month in. I’m reframing things (pun fully intended), picking up my camera more often, taking the time to learn again, and being far more intentional about what I allow my time and energy to be consumed by.
On that note, on to the photos.
Below you’ll find a random collection of photographs from a year where I could have—and should have—done better.
—Tyler
