I saw that title as a piece of graffiti on a wall when our train pulled into Barcelona a few weeks ago, during our family holiday (it’s a beautiful city for another blog post). There was a lot scrawled over the crumbling, dusty stonework as we rattled along the tracks. Much of it was either meaningless to me or difficult to understand without a working knowledge of Spanish – but I was still drawn to each explosion of colour as it passed. By the time I spotted those words I was almost in a trance, but they snapped me out of it. I immediately found myself thinking about them.

As far as I could remember, they were the only words I’d seen in English since I’d read the signs at the station we’d left. Where had they come from? What did they refer to? Who – if anyone – were they aimed at? All of those questions would remain mysteries, but in that moment I felt they were speaking to me. I just wasn’t quite sure how to interpret them. Perhaps burnout can be defined as one of two things – either the widely recognised state of having drained oneself completely, having given something your all, or the opposite. Extinguishing what keeps you fired up, just through pure apathy. Admitting defeat and letting it win.

I probably sound like some kind of ridiculous lifestyle guru, but that’s not my intention at all. A couple of weeks ago, I got some news that will be tricky for me to process, but I also know that I can’t let it wash over me and blow that spark out. I have to look at the bigger picture, see what’s good about it and smile – because I’ll only have myself to blame for the consequences if I don’t. Who’d have thought that the view from a train in Spain could have given me such a handy motto as a reminder?

Mason