Being Tired is a Choice

Each day there are paths that lie before us, and oftentimes we default to one less than satisfying

May 19, 2023

Over the last few years I've noticed a trend. I've felt it in myself, I've observed it with those around me, and I've been coming to the conclusion that it affects people all around America and likely the world beyond our borders. I think people are choosing to be tired.

I've had a change of lifestyle, pacing, and activities that started when I was in high school and has been accelerating ever since. From my earliest years I had a deep love of video games. I have fond memories I cherish of sitting around on summer mornings working through games with my sisters, Friday nights where my buddies and I would be up into the early hours of the morning versing each other in whatever competitive game was popular at the time, and even the blissful haze of after school hours working through rich single-player narratives. I've had a lot of fun and made countless memories that I wouldn't give up.

While I've spent many years happily playing video games, as I've gotten older I've found myself spending less time doing what I spent a lifetime loving and instead seeking out new experiences and hobbies: as I entered into adulthood I found myself looking for any excuse to travel; between cycling, rock climbing, ultimate frisbee, disc golf and many more activities I find myself more active than I ever was; even the simple act of spending time in person with someone having a pleasant talk over lunch has become far more important to me than video games. Through all of this change I've noticed something. I still get tired: whether that be mental, social, physical, or any combination of type. But when I push through that initial fatigue and partake in any myriad of these new hobbies that I love I find myself becoming more energized than I would've been had I taken a rest day. All of this has led me to believe that being tired is largely a state of mind we choose to dwell in, and you can find energy and inspiration in the act of doing.

Now it may be important at this point to preface the obvious: it's okay to rest. There are plenty of times when I've reached my limit and realize I need to rest or else I'll be making myself and everyone else around me miserable in my exhaustion. Recently I spent a whole day lounging in bed reading, only ever getting up to switch laundry or find another snack. There's no point in hitting the wall and deciding to continue running into it to spite your body when it tells you to slow down. But I think people are oftentimes misdiagnosing a sense of under stimulation and boredom as exhaustion. This leads to a cycle that's hard to escape from.

The cycle as I've experienced it firsthand and witnessed across various relationships is commonplace, at least across America. Someone might work an office job where they sit in front of a computer all day working on unfulfilling projects that require little mental investment on their part. After a long day of sitting responding to emails and scheduling meetings they might arrive home, and as they shut the front door find the pull and allure of the couch irresistible. This leads to whittling the afternoon away, scrolling endlessly on various apps and streaming platforms. Before any of us know it, it's dark out and time to get ready for bed, lest you arrive at work tomorrow even more tired. Thus the cycle repeats until the weekend where 7 days of life are attempted to be fit into just 2. Monday comes and the cycle repeats. The exhaustion seems inescapable. I would argue, however, that there is an escape. Exhaustion perpetuates exhaustion, and the key to beating it is discipline. With discipline you gain the freedom to live a life you find fulfillment in every day, and with this fulfillment you become ever more energized.

Inspiration is a phenomenal thing. When it hits it's as though a bolt from Zeus himself has filled you with the power to sculpt the world into your masterpiece. But as any Greek tale would tell you, divine intervention is a rare and fleeting thing. The gods are capricious and often disinterested or unaware of the wills of us mere mortal men. If we as a species waited for a burst of inspiration to come to us we wouldn't be nearly as far along as we are. Rome wasn't built in a day by heroic action, but through countless generations of will and determination. With discipline and focus you can overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable one step at a time.

Look to those in society we admire and celebrate: the musician who can bring you to tears with a note plucked just right, an athlete who shatters expectations and pushes the limit on what humanity is capable of, the author who's able to transport you to another world with simple words on a page. These people haven't ascended to their place in the pantheon of our society through the occasional burst of motivation and inspiration, but rather through persistent and sustained effort. They wake up every day with a goal in mind and take one more step. That step itself is small, but in the totality of a career amounts to the Odyssey. I don't know many world-class athletes or artists but I'd be willing to bet that these people are incredibly disciplined. I expect that they have days and weeks and perhaps even months where they feel fatigued and a lack of interest in their craft, but they keep their goals and mind and persevere, taking one more step towards the final destination.

Since completing my undergraduate degree I found myself back home, working the same job I've had for the last few summers. It isn't a job I particularly enjoy. The work isn't especially satisfying and oftentimes I have to work with people I'd rather avoid. At the end of a day, which somehow occasionally manages to cram an eternity into just 8 hours, I have often found myself craving the mindless release of my room. In it I have many tools to toil away the evening until it's time for the comforting release that sleep brings. Instead though I try to push myself towards some activity that I know will bring me greater satisfaction and fulfillment. I push myself to make plans with friends or find some way to get outside and work my body. Even this blog can become a toil. More than once I've had to work to overcome a mental block and begin my writing, but once I begin I find it's easy to continue. Not only is it easy but I find it to be an enriching experience that leaves me feeling more energized than if I had "vegged out".

Through this work, through the constant pursuit of the goals I give myself, I find that the life I find myself living is more. More enriched, more fulfilling, more sustainable, more in many senses of the world. Beyond that I believe that with these goals and the discipline I've tried to drill into my head I wake up each day more energized than I was before. I'm now 22, and while I'm no means old I am older than I was at 16. I can't remember how each day felt but I think on the whole I am a more energetic person than I was in my teenage years. Really I feel more energetic than I was a year ago. I've been choosing not to be tired, but instead find a reason to become active and through that activity energized.

I've been working this philosophy out for a few months now - on walks with friends, in observations of the world, in my own introspection. On one of these walks I remember a friend pushing back. She had many good reasons that someone may be tired and need to rest more often than the average person. They may, for example, be afflicted with a serious condition that makes even mundane tasks like grocery shopping Herculean in its demands. I readily ceded to this point and agreed that she was right. There are plenty of good reasons to be tired and need rest.

What I'm trying to say here isn't that it's wrong to be tired, to take a nap or even just spend an afternoon lazing about in front of the television. There's a time and place for everything, after all. But rather what I'm trying to get across is that you have to decide what matters to you and push yourself to move in that direction.

Later on that same walk the conversation had wandered and my friend expressed her annoyance that people complain about their lack of time reading. She told me that people will go on and on about how they envy the amount of books she goes through, and how they wished they had time for it too. Her frustration comes from the fact that these same people will spend hours a day on any number of social media apps - maybe not all at the same time, but scattered throughout the day in forgettable little chunks. "If they just downloaded an ebook and read a few pages at a time instead of scrolling TikTok", she said, "they would be reading just as much as I do".

I told her that she just described my position at its core. Life is all about compromises and trade-offs. If you want to read, you have to figure out what you're willing to give up to do so. If you want to get in better shape, write that novel, develop a better social life or really accomplish any goals you may have, you first need to decide if you're really tired.

I look to those I've met who seem to decide that once they reach (or reached) a certain age they have to give up the things they love. Once they turn X years old it's time to give up the adventures and spontaneity and activities that filled their younger days with joy. They choose to be tired and resign themselves to something less than fulfillment. I weep for those people. When I turn 23, I plan to be just as energetic as I was at 22. Because there's only one day separating those two ages. I look forward to the coming decades of my life, not with anxiety at the changes that will come or the ways in which life may take a turn for the worst, but instead with hope because I'll have had so many more experiences and will be able to find new reasons every day to push myself towards my goals.

If you've made it this far, I would hope that something I said resonated with you. By no means was this intended to call anyone or any lifestyle out. Instead I hope you ask yourself this question: "as I go to sleep tonight, can I look back at the day I lived and feel satisfaction, or is the only thing I see reasons for why I settled for anything else?" No matter your answer I hope you'll wake up tomorrow and choose the life that you want. It doesn't matter how small the step, as long as it's towards what you want. I hope you'll wake up tomorrow and choose not to be tired.

An Interpersonal Journal

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