Why So Tired?

When we were kids we would rip around for hours, we were tired but it didn’t matter. We knew why we were tired, we had earned it. We would sleep, wake up in the morning, shake off the fog of the night and emerge re-energized. Reborn.

What happened to those kids? How did we get to a place where we don’t know why we are tired?

I’m not talking about the tired after a hard day of work or the tired that comes from having to put out one of the many unexpected fires that life arranges. I mean the tired that just somehow massed until it became a regular companion. How did we allow that version of tired to wrap itself around us? More importantly, how do we leave it behind?

There have been countless studies addressing this collective fatigue. Everything is to blame, nothing is to blame, you’re to blame, the person beside you is to blame. It’s the fault of the internet. Social media is killing us. Global warming is climate change is not real is man made is to be expected. We must have this, we can’t have that. What do we believe when there is so much that can’t be believed? How do we believe again?

Maybe we are defining this massing of tired incorrectly. It’s not fatigue, we aren’t really tired, we are in a state of depletion. We are wrapped in a collective malaise, seduced by inertia. We have forgotten how to feel good about ripping around just for the joy of moving about, for the possibilities of spending the energy of the day wisely, or unwisely, knowing that we can go to sleep and with our well-earned rest do it again tomorrow. We need to be reborn, re-energized, every day.

The path to rebirth is well documented:

☞ Eat real food, you know what’s good for you, but not too much. Food is fuel, energy. Too much becomes a diminishing return.

☞ Get up, stretch, walk, maybe break a sweat. You don’t have to set the world on fire, just overcome inertia.

☞ Drink all the water. Water is life.

☞ Caffeine, etc. Drugs. Be careful, use wisely, sometimes the drugged way is the wrong way.

☞ Alcohol, no surprises here. Be foolish with it and pay then, now and later.

☞ Step away from the external, daily, relax. Breathe; this is everything. Sift through the hundreds of techniques and find one that works for you. 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, when you need it. It’s a miracle cure for the passive acceptance of malaise.

☞ Stress — unavoidable.

Worrying about things you can’t control — avoidable.

Figure out what matters, really matters, and always try to do your best. Neither you nor anyone else can ask for more. Your best is not comparative, you know what is possible for you.

☞ Sleep.

If this is a problem, your number one priority becomes figuring out why. Without proper rest and sleep, there is no tomorrow that will find you reborn. Create a routine, lay down, consider the day, learn from your successes and failures, let them become the past. Sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.

☞ We are the choices we make.