Burnout

A couple of years ago I (once again) swore off exams and this past January I (once again) broke that promise. I started studying for CAS Exam 7.

There wasn’t a lot of room for this. I had a pretty demanding job and three kids at home under 5. I bathe them every night, read them books and tell a story before bed. Now I was to detonate this nice little balance with a first attempt at an upper level actuarial exam? No way.

But a colleague started studying for 7 and I felt a pang of.. jealousy? Brutal though the exam process is, that feeling of pushing yourself to your limit is addictive. Real life problems are hard, too, of course, but real life payoffs tend to take a long time. That buzz of a duel on exam day and the rush of the result with genuinely high stakes is hard to get anywhere else.

So this was an experiment. Can I start four solid months out and study only on my commute and in little chunks here and there and pass an exam? Well, the self-talk went, if I can cover the whole material twice by the signup deadline, I’ll go for it. But that was in March! To get there I needed to commit hard in January. If this was nuts at least I’d only lose two months of my life.

Turns out it wasn’t nuts! Or at least it was achievable. It was definitely nuts. I had my 500 cue cards done by mid Feb. I scheduled daily close reading sessions with my co-studying colleague (we actually got to about 2 a week). Every minute I was focused.

In the back of my mind I knew that the chances of my delicate little balance blowing up in my face was pretty high. That means I was scared. Constantly. For months.

It works, you know, fear. Learning is so painful your mind desperately looks for every little way to procrastinate or avoid the work. You convince yourself to focus on the things you’re good at. You self-deceive about the stuff you’re not good at, like, “oh, I get that” after one problem (Liar!).

The way to suppress the fear is to feel mastery over the material. But since exam outcomes are always a bit random true mastery is almost impossible. That’s why the fear comes back fast and drives you on.

I tasted the lash of fear for four months. I had good weeks and bad weeks but contained studying to my commute and the cue cards I literally carried everywhere. Still reading to my kids at night, I started cautiously feeling good.

Then the wheels came off. We had the floor replaced in our house and it went wrong. I had to take the week off work (no commute!) and we moved into a hotel for 5 days. With the kids of course. Two weeks before the exam. The very day we move back in I fly to Europe for a week-long business trip. And on the first night in Europe, I get the flu. Influenza B, from a Chuck E Cheese we visited trying to kill an afternoon while they demolished our living room. All three kids and my wife got it, too. And they were home sick while I was away. I had it bad. They had it worse.

I wasn’t able to crack a book until Saturday night having not studied for 13 days. The exam was the following Thursday morning. My family was exhausted. I was exhausted. But fear had been there all along, growing stronger. It was terror now. Did I have enough time?

I sat for the exam. Felt good about it. But I was burnt out. Normally after sitting I sheepishly look up the next exam’s syllabus: what’s next? Not this time. I couldn’t bear to look at it. Others download the exam when it’s released and replicate their answers to guess their grade. That thought made me nauseous. My colleague was all ready to dig into Exam 8. No way. I don’t want to do that again. I’m burnt out.

Where I come from a burnout is a kid that smoked too much weed and has that heavy lidded, slow talking disposition welded to their personality. This feeling is similar. It’s not laziness, really. Lazy people are lying to themselves about the consequences of them parking their ass for another week. Burnouts know what we’re missing. We’re making an informed decision to sit stuff out. It ain’t worth it!

So my result notice went to my junk mail and I got it late. I was in no rush. This exam didn’t mean much on its own if I was truly done. A pass, though! It still feels good, I have to say, but…

No more exams.

(again! I know..).

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