I’ve never known so many people to be so tired.
I can perhaps accept that it’s my time of life and the people that I associate with but it seems to be across the board, particularly in the areas that I work.
Everyone seems to be completely exhausted and are close to bombing out.
I think this was problematic before covid arrived but I think covid has accelerated this in the areas where people are still able to work.
We’ve had to adapt in an extraordinary way to bizarrely different circumstances for work.
We’ve had the fears of dying and then the fears of being too busy and then the fears of dying of being too busy.
And we return back, more than a year after this all started, to a situation where we can’t even relax on holiday but we’re back to work again and getting more and more tired.
So, just a suggestion as to how to deal with this when it comes my way (and it comes my way all of the time).
And this stems from a conversation with a great friend the other day whose partner is struggling with finding the balance between health and work.
It must go back to your principles.
Your work exists to give you the life you want.
The life you want includes the things that you have and the places that you go but more and more importantly, the way that you feel.
If your work is not giving you the life you want and ensuring that you’re happy with the way that you feel then you must reassess your work.
Your work is a tool to give you the life you want, your work is not your life.
If we find that work is making us unhealthy or unfit or upset or depressed or sad, it really is worth taking the time to step outside and see whether there’s a different way.
For my part, a year ago, I was genuinely concerned that I might have to downgrade to live in a caravan and I’m not joking and that is the conversation that I had with my wife.
That time was difficult but there was joy there and happiness too and in a bizarre way I could see clearer than I can when my nose is so hard to the grindstone because I’m keeping things safe and making things work.
And so, it’s back to the situation where my work exists to give me the life that I want.
I’m really lucky because I’ve been able to make changes over the last little while to get back to that situation (even though it is not and will never be perfect) and I don’t want to preach but really and honestly, back to first principles is the only way to fix it when you find yourself in a situation that you don’t like.
If you’re too tired then you need to slow down and go to bed earlier and if your work is stopping you from slowing down and going to bed earlier then you must change your work so that you can slow down and go to bed earlier.
We’re lapsing into a coma of Netflix and other streamed television of refined carbohydrates and inactivity.
The ‘lizard brain’ promotes that and encourages us to go there and it takes a hell of a lot of strength to break the cycle and go in the other direction for all but the strongest of society.
It starts with the first brick though and then brick upon brick it’s possible to build ourselves to a better place where our work again exists to give us the life that we want.
Blog Post Number - 2829
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