I wandered the kitchen lethargically. My face was long. Jen asked what was wrong. “I’m exhausted.”
It was dinner time. I was starving and didn’t feel like cooking. I avoided starting a meal for 10 minutes as I wallowed in my tiredness and “don’t wanna-ness.”
Two hours later, Jen said she was exhausted and ready for bed. I told her I was wide awake. She was perplexed, “Two hours ago, you were telling me how tired you were.” I said, “I was tired. I woke-up when I cooked dinner.”
There are two kinds of tired. Tired because you need to rest and recover. And tired because we’re under stimulated and need to reactivate.
The second kind of tired is the one we use to procrastinate or avoid. “Oh, I can’t do that now. I’m too tired. I don’t have the energy.”
This kind of tired deceives us. We make decisions that move us away from the bigger things that we want … wellness and wealthfulness. We tell ourselves we need a break. We check out Facebook. We decide to watch TV. We drive thru.
It’s not that we’re not tired. It’s that we don’t realize the kind of tired we are. We tune out instead of tuning in. We disengage instead of reengaging.
Instead of digging a little deeper, sending a Thank You Note, cleaning the house, reading a good book, spending time in prayer or meditation. We watch TV instead of taking a walk or a jog. We drive through and say, “Yes, I would like fries with that” instead of grilling a chicken breast and sauteing some vegetables.
This tired is the excuse for procrastination.
I cooked dinner. It reengaged me. And I was healthfully nourished. It was time for another few hours of wakefulness.
Next time you’re tired and avoiding something, ask yourself a question:
Is it time to wake-up or go to sleep?
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