The February Funk
It doesn’t happen every year, but this year it’s hitting me: The February Funk. You may know what I’m talking about: it’s not really winter any longer, but it’s not yet spring. The winter holidays are a somewhat distant memory. The weather tends to be dreary. Cloudy, Rainy, Bone chilling winds.
April showers may bring May flowers, but February rain is just dismal. The only thing February rain brings is a sense of doom. A gray pall seems to hang over life and there are times it feels like it will not get better any time soon. Lots of little things go awry, and these pile up on top of the big things that go off the rails.
When we look at our work experience, our home life, and then add in the crush of current events, it can feel like the weight of the world is on us. Will there ever be a light at the end of the tunnel? And are we even in a tunnel? What if we’re stuck in a cave that has collapsed around us and there’s no way out??
Yes, things sometimes don’t go the way we want. Sometimes many things at once don’t go the way we want. That can be overwhelming, cause stress, and send us into a full blown case of the Blahs. We may ask ourselves, “What is the point of it all? Why organize one more annual conference? Why bother with one more e-newsletter that most people probably won’t read? Why recruit new members when we have nothing new to say? Benefit, benefit, benefit. Service, service, service. Blah, blah blah.”
The environment in which we operate (meaning our home and our workspace) has a lot to do with our view of the world. If we are working in a dark office on a dark and dreary day, that’s probably not going to support a positive outlook. If everything is dark, then everything is dark.
One thing to consider is that February is a short month – thank goodness! Soon it will be spring and we’ll be excited by the early spring blooms and the beautiful green color of the new leaves. The sky will be bluer, the grass will be greener, and there will be a sense of possibility in the fresh air.
While that may not be helpful when dealing with a funk today, knowing that there will be light tomorrow can go a long way to getting us to the weekend.
Regarding the “what’s the point of it all?” question when it comes to working in nonprofit management: while something we do is not new to us, it is always new to someone else. Like the natural world, our work has cycles, sometimes built around conferences, and sometimes built around projects or other programs. To everything there is a season, whether it’s planning the conference or finding the light around the February Funk.
What we do matters, even if the Funky February Fog can cloud our view at times.
