reflections 6: world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs

Since I was about 15 I had been involved in one kind of ministry, public-service, volunteering thing or another, mostly youth ministry, with some music playing for church services. The music was usually fun, but became disillusioning if you looked around and saw a static stagnation of routine characterizing it (“Now lets send off the congregation with an up-beat song!” How I'm sick of hearing that old drum.)
Youth ministry could be rewarding if you could find those youth who could genuinely say that what you had contributed to had made their life more worth living. In all reality, however, the greater landscape of their lives will probably have more of a pull than what you did. The overbearing worldview of parents, of teachers, of friends of events shape our horizons and pull us more than we like to believe. Now, if we do believe in the power of God and that it is beyond our little efforts, that's something else. I had certainly hoped in this. Now, however, its hard to remind myself of it, if I run into a youth on the street whom I had invested in with prayer and relationship. I get the feeling that most of them consider the ministry a blip on the radar. Good while it lasted. Ultimately they had continued mediocre lives, and whose to say whether they were better or worse off for it.
I didn't start feeling so disillusioned until some time after I arrived home from my last “big” ministry experience. What I felt coming back was that I couldn't fully engage in the same sorts of ministries that I had before. I did at first, when I came back at the same time summer camps were happening and i poured what I feels like was my last portion of passion into that. I've become increasingly less engaged since. Basically, I was tired of helping people. I needed someone to help me and my best efforts at asking for help (which, I'll admit, weren't always great) reinforced the idea that no-one was interested (again: “if no one cares, why bother?”) Even when I wasn't directly involved in a formal ministry position I had always made a point of helping someone. I guess I thought I was finding purpose and acting righteously by investing into others.
But now I was loosing my grip on any kind of commitment.
“Sounds like a classic case of burnout” were the words of someone kind enough to finally hear me out.
With this realization, however, I still couldn't seem to make quality contact with anyone who seemed interested in helping me. How do I heal from being “burnt out”? My town felt like it was full of flakes.
I could move.
I almost did, twice. Few people knew how close I was to doing so. Both times, however, something pulled me back, to pick up and carry on resolute in my career vector, though perhaps not in that of my soul. Could a change in scenery really help anyways? That said, I am a runner. When things look bad I like to run. But when is that actually a good idea?