Lately, no matter where I happen to be on my travels, when someone has asked me how I’m doing or vice versa, the word “tired” has featured somewhere in the response. In a more challenging week there might be a rally of exchanges, where we go back and forth for a few minutes about feelings of exhaustion, and what we wish we could do about it, like “sleep for two days straight”.
I’ve been thinking about how often over the past few years we’ve been answering questions about our wellbeing by describing some variation of fatigue. Maybe it’s just me and the people I’m engaging with. But I suspect it might be true for others as well. We have all to varying degrees been exposed to stresses and challenges as a result of political tensions, economic shifts, intensifying climate calamities and a world seemingly in disarray. These realities, coupled with the daily pressures we all face, have made me wonder if we’re paying enough attention to the reasons for this tiredness, and what, if anything, there is to do about it.