The Maintenance Schedule

April 20, 2026

Psychological warfare lends something like a scripture.

If every reason our brain gives us takes at least 90 seconds to shut off, the catalyst responsible for our awareness—we create calm. Shutting off is just as easy as turning on; the challenging part is the middle. The place we choose to stay is the maintenance place.

Although beneficial to be within control of our awareness, it also is detrimental to productivity. To stagnate in this place for the purpose of the outcome, you just won't reach it the way you hope, and the settle-down phase is only given, typically, after all efforts are extinguished and catastrophe forces us to reset.

The dangerous cycle that further reinforces our need to control our awareness, validated by our most recently lived catastrophe, also referred to as fight-or-flight mode, I like to think of more like a maintenance schedule.

The reason for this shift in perspective is that it removes the experience as being solely reactionary and brings the control back to ourselves.

And hey, trust me, I get that it is almost offensive to hear something like this, especially if your life is spent in fight-or-flight mode—maintenance scheduling being the base of your existence.

I get it because if someone had told me this in the depths of my misery, I would've had a complete catatonic shutdown and wouldn't have had the energy to even yell out to them how much they clearly did not understand.

Nor would I ever wish it upon anyone.

I believe the maintenance schedule has a spectrum of severity, and although I don't think it's all that important to explain that spectrum until later throughout this essay, let's just get right into it.

The difference between fight-or-flight mode and the maintenance schedule is simple.

Burnout.

We hear it all the time. As a parent you'll hear, "I don't know how you do it all." As an overworked employee, your friends will tell you the same thing. As an employee, you are given vigorous training on the key principles of burnout and the steps you can take to prevent it.

However, there always seems to be something missing from this, and maybe it's simply that these conversations and comments do basically nothing other than provide a brief moment of validation and understanding—which can create a sense of understanding amongst those within your community, whether it be your workplace, family, or social circle.

What it misses entirely is the fight-or-flight mode that comes as a byproduct, clinging like a tumor to burnout routines. An early shift and growing parasite leading to a state of potential psychological warfare.

While some burnout preventative measures are great and may be sustainable for some people, some schedules, and some backgrounds, for me, as a child welfare caseworker working twelve hours a day, five days a week, seeing love, paying bills, and driven by the strongest factor setting me up for failure—my relentless empathy.

The empathy that started, as you may expect, in my early childhood would later be not only my superpower and driver to the highest rates of altruism—but also my ladder to self-distress and misery.

Imagine...