Take Time to Rest, But Come Back to Fight With Us

The battle for privacy rights will be a long one. This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon.

If you want to be a good advocate, who will be able to fight with us for a long time, you must take the time to rest when needed.

Burning out isn't an option, we cannot afford to lose your precious contribution! And to prevent burning out, you must learn how to rest.

When you are starting to feel the activist and dystopia-fighter fatigue, it's important to take the time off you need until you feel rested. Then, come back to the battlefield to fight with us again!

Here's why it's fundamental to learn how to rest when you need it:

Knowing when to rest is a strength, not a weakness

We have some bad news for you: You are a human.

This has many annoying side effects, such as having limited energy and a flesh-and-bone body you need to take care of. Trying to ignore this undeniable fact will only slow you down even more.

In our society's hustle culture, it's counterproductive that we often value overwork more than strategic rest.

The thing is, overwork isn't a sustainable strategy for the long battle ahead of us. What we need to succeed is privacy activists who will fight by our side for a very long time. We need endurance and persistence. And for this to happen, we need ourselves and our privacy comrades to be well-rested, by taking pauses and adopting the strategies we all need to recharge.

We need our movement to stay away from the often toxic hustle culture we have all observed from Big Tech companies, and instead embrace a culture of mutual support that encourages self-care.

We shouldn't try to imitate our opponents by "moving fast and breaking things."

We need to move at a sustainable pace, and build a powerful privacy rights movement that will last.

The important part isn't to fight for privacy rights 24/7. What matters most is that once you are well-rested after taking some time off, you come back to the battlefield to fight with us again.

Successful social change activists learn to be the tortoise rather than the hare. Looking after yourself and your family is important.

Source: The Activists' Handbook by Aidan Ricketts

Tips to help prevent privacy activism burnout

Unfortunately, activism burnout is quite common. And, in the privacy field, this is amplified by the well-documented effect of privacy fatigue.

Additionally, the fact that we have to incessantly push against a tidal wave of new privacy-invasive legislations and technologies is understandingly exhausting. But we can adopt many strategies to prevent activism burnout, minimize privacy fatigue, and learn how to rest and valorize self-care as an essential part of our work:

Take breaks: When you start feeling completely discouraged about the state of privacy rights in the world, it's time for a break. Take a few days off if you can, and try to enjoy activities that have nothing to do with your privacy advocacy.
Take care of your body: Make sure not to neglect your bodily needs, this should always be a priority. Your body and your brain are the most essential tools you have for your privacy advocacy work. Take care of them first and foremost.
Sleep well: Prioritize quality sleep and adopt a rigorous sleep routine with a strict schedule.
Keep bedtime calm: Try to avoid reading about stressful privacy news or exciting privacy technologies close to bedtime. This can all wait for you tomorrow.
Separate devices: If you can afford it, use separate devices for your personal usage and your privacy activism work. This can help keeping a mental barrier between personal and professional, and limiting the "always-on" privacy-advocate mode.
Find friends: Find a community of peers you can talk to. Exchange resources and seek support from your community. Remember that you aren't alone in this battle.
Split the work: Delegate tasks to privacy comrades. Seek allies and alliances. Reach out for help, and don't take all the responsibilities of your projects on your own shoulders. Build a team, and learn to trust others with the work.
Celebrate! Take the time to celebrate each victory, no matter how small. Celebrate with your peers too, and never miss an opportunity to congratulate everyone's hard work.
Take vacations: Plan longer breaks through the year with activities that will have nothing to do with your privacy advocacy work. Make sure they are long enough that you have time to even miss the privacy battlefield, and come back eagerly once you are fully rested.
Plan your (temporary) replacement: If you are in a leadership position, make sure there is a system in place to take over your responsibilities fully when you need time off. You shouldn't be indispensable for your projects to keep going in the short term, and you should have the same access to time off as the rest of your team. As a leader, it's important to valorize rest for your team, leading by example. Rest is essential for you too.
Keep hope with long-term objectives: If you feel discouraged by the current state of privacy rights, try to keep in mind the bigger picture. We will lose many fights on the journey to improvement. This is to be expected. But all the work we do matters, including the fights we lose. Try to focus on the movement as a whole, and on advancing privacy rights even just a little in our lifetime. See defeats as opportunities to learn from for the next stronger and better-organized battle.
Call for help: If you feel like you are at the end of your rope and might be experiencing symptoms of burnout, seek professional help to support you.
Support others: Don't forget to support your privacy comrades when you feel well-enough yourself, to prevent exhaustion as a community.

More resources

Stai visualizzando la copia in Italiano di Privacy Guides, tradotta dal nostro fantastico team di lingue su Crowdin. Se noti un errore, o vedi eventuali sezioni non tradotte in questa pagina, considera di dare una mano! Visita Crowdin

You're viewing the Italian copy of Privacy Guides, translated by our fantastic language team on Crowdin. If you notice an error, or see any untranslated sections on this page, please consider helping out!