I’ve been feeling pretty exhausted recently.
It’s not the kind of tired that gets fixed by going to bed a little earlier one night. It’s more like the cumulative tiredness that comes from trying to be present in several meaningful parts of your life at the same time—and feeling like you are not doing any of them particularly well.
I just finished my second year as Executive Director at Mountain Valley. I am also a husband, a father to two very young children, a first-time homeowner, and someone who still wants to take care of himself physically, spend time outside, run, train, and feel connected to the parts of myself that exist outside of work and parenting.
All those things matter deeply to me. And, if I am being completely honest, I feel pretty fried trying to keep up with all of them.
In the past three years alone, I got married, became the leader of an organization, had two children, and bought a house. Any one of those life changes would require an adjustment period. For whatever reason—and this is admittedly a theme in my life—I decided to stack all of them on top of one another.
Right now, I am regularly operating on about five hours of sleep. I wake up and try to run, train, or do something for myself if I have the energy.
Then I spend the day leading an organization whose staff support young people and families who are in crisis and struggling emotionally.
Then I come home and try to be present with my wife and children, take care of the house, clean up the kitchen, walk the dog, take out the trash, and do all of the ordinary things that still need to happen regardless of how much energy I have left.
By the end of the day, I often feel physically and emotionally depleted. I feel less than satisfied with how I performed in the various roles I occupy, overwhelmed by what remains on my to-do list, and already aware of the demands waiting for me tomorrow.
That is hard for me. I am competitive. I am a high achiever. I expect a lot from myself. I have a pretty clear picture in my mind of the kind of leader, husband, father, athlete, and person I want to be.
The problem is that the person in that picture seems to have more time, more energy, and significantly more sleep than the person who is actually living my life right now. And so I find myself asking:
How do I bridge the gap between where I am and where I want to be?
The Story of Where I Should Be
In cognitive behavioral therapy, we often talk about “should statements.”
- I should be able to hit my daily running mileage.
- I should be able to answer all my emails.
- I should be able to spend meaningful time on the ground with the kids in the program.
- I should be able to make it home in time for dinner.
- I should be able to keep up with the laundry and household tasks.
- I should be able to show up more emotionally available in my relationships.
These are some of the “should” statements that run through my head on a regular basis.
In psychology, we often describe these thoughts as cognitive distortions and talk about the ways they can negatively affect our mental health. But sometimes that language does not feel like it fully captures their impact.
I do not think we emphasize enough how “should” statements can create an additional layer of suffering on top of an experience that is already difficult. One idea I have heard expressed in different ways throughout my career is this:
Suffering often lives in the distance between where we are and where we think we should be.
One area of my life where I have come to understand this lesson is through running. When I am on a long, 10-mile run and look down at my watch every few minutes to see how much farther I have to go, it becomes a form of mental torture. I am constantly comparing where I am to where I want to be: the finish line. And in that comparison, the place I am currently occupying becomes harder to tolerate.
I think a lot of people have some version of that experience. Maybe it happens while running. Maybe it happens while sitting in a difficult meeting, waiting for the workday to end, trying to get through a hard season, or hoping that some part of life will finally change.
You find yourself staring at the clock, waiting to be somewhere you are not. But the more you focus on the clock, the more you focus on where you should be or where you want to be, the harder it becomes to inhabit where you actually are.
When I apply that idea more broadly to my life right now, I can see the pathway to suffering pretty clearly.
First, it is important to acknowledge how fortunate I am. Being the leader of a great organization, being a husband, being a father, and owning a home are all challenges I am privileged to have.
But this is where the layers begin to accumulate. I experience the real difficulty of being exhausted and stretched too thin. Then I become frustrated with myself for feeling that way.
- Why can’t I be more grateful for what I have?
- Why can’t I find a way to make this work?
- Other people have similar circumstances and seem to be handling them fine.
- I should be able to do this without feeling this exhausted.
The suffering is not only in the exhaustion. It is also in the comparison—to other people, to the ideal version of my life that exists in my head, and to the version of myself I believe I should be.
Not only am I having a difficult experience. I am adding another layer of pain by telling myself there is a different way things should be.
Not Everything Needs to Be Fixed
This is where the pathway forward begins to become clearer. When I say “pathway forward,” I am intentionally avoiding the word solution. Because part of the problem is that I keep viewing the situation as something that must be solved.
That instinct makes sense. Most of us are wired to problem-solve. When something feels hard, the mind immediately starts asking:
- What needs to change?
- What am I doing wrong?
- What can I remove?
- How do I make this stop?
Sometimes those questions are useful. Sometimes we do need better boundaries, more support, more rest, or a different plan.
But there are also times when the core difficulty cannot be removed without walking away from something that matters. In those moments, continuing to treat the experience like a problem to be solved can create more suffering than the original difficulty itself.
Not every painful experience is evidence that something is wrong.
When I look at the things creating much of the strain in my life, I have to ask myself some uncomfortable but important questions.
Do I want a different job?
No. I love my work. Leading Mountain Valley is demanding, but it is also deeply meaningful to me. Service is one of my core values, and I feel fortunate to lead a program that helps young people and families move toward fuller lives.
Do I want a different marriage?
Absolutely not. My wife and I are in an intense phase of life. We are both tired. We sometimes take that tiredness out on each other. But there is no one else I would want to be doing this with.
Do I want to be less involved as a father?
No. My children have quickly become the most important part of my life. Being present with them matters to me, even when that presence comes at the cost of sleep, training, or personal time.
Do I want to stop taking care of my body and training as an athlete?
No. Movement and athletics are a core part of who I am.
When I examine the obvious solutions, I keep arriving at the same place: I do not actually want to abandon any of the things creating the pressure. And there is limited room to reduce the demands of those things without moving away from something I deeply value.
They are difficult because they matter and because I care.
That does not mean there are no adjustments to make. It does not mean I should never ask for help, set boundaries, rest, or make practical changes.
But it does mean that once I have run the gamut of possible solutions, the work may shift. Instead of trying to eliminate the difficulty, I may need to change my relationship to it.
Acceptance Is Not Resignation
Acceptance is a word that is easy to misunderstand. People sometimes hear acceptance and think it means giving up. In my situation, that misunderstanding might sound like:
So I am just supposed to be tired forever?
For someone else, it might sound like:
- So I am just supposed to be anxious?
- So I am supposed to accept being depressed?
- So I should stop trying to make things better?
That is not what we mean when we talk about acceptance. Acceptance is not saying: “This is the way it is, so I am going to lie down and do nothing.”
Acceptance is saying: “This is the way it is today, and I am still going to commit myself to living my life and showing up despite how I am feeling.”
Those are very different things. Acceptance asks us to hold two truths at once.
- I can acknowledge that I am exhausted and still show up as a father.
- I can feel overwhelmed and still take the next meaningful step at work.
- I can be frustrated with my current level of fitness and still go for the run I am capable of completing today.
- I can want things to improve without requiring them to improve before I allow myself to participate in my life.
- And, maybe even more importantly, I can want things to improve without requiring them to improve before I allow myself to feel grateful, satisfied, or at peace with the life I am living.
This concept of acceptance is central to much of what we do at Mountain Valley. Young people often arrive at treatment believing that the goal is to get rid of anxiety.
- If I can just stop feeling anxious, then I can return to school.
- If I can stop having intrusive thoughts, then I can be around my family.
- If I can feel confident first, then I can do the hard thing.
But good treatment eventually asks a different question.
- Can anxiety be present while you go to school?
- Can uncertainty come with you while you reconnect with your life?
- Can you feel afraid and still move toward something that matters?
The goal is not to declare war on every difficult internal experience. It is to learn that those experiences can be present without controlling the direction of our lives.
Carrying the Struggle With Me
I will be the first to admit that I am not especially good at this all the time. I still wake up frustrated that I did not sleep more. I still feel disappointed when I miss a run. I still have days when I leave work feeling like I did not accomplish enough, then go home feeling like I do not have enough left to give my family.
I still catch myself treating this season of my life like a problem that should have already been solved. But I am trying to remind myself of exactly that: This is a season. It will not always look like this.
My children will get older. My sleep will probably improve. Their growing independence will allow my wife and me to reengage more meaningfully in our relationship with one another.
I will continue developing as a leader. Mountain Valley will continue to grow as an organization, and I will continue adapting to the demands of the job.
The house projects will eventually get done—or disappear because I finally realize they were not that important in the first place.
Different challenges will come. Some of the same challenges will simply change shape. I am not naive about that. But time will pass, and this season will change.
I do not gain anything by demanding that future reality from the present moment. Right now, I am tired. Right now, I am carrying a lot. Right now, I can’t give every part of my life the fullest version of myself that I wish I could give it.
And right now, I can still show up.
I can do the best work I am capable of doing that day. I can be the best husband and father I am capable of being that day. I can take care of my body in the way that is available to me that day. I can stop waiting for the tiredness to leave before deciding that my life is meaningful.
Maybe the tiredness does not need to be removed before I move forward. Maybe I can put it in the passenger seat and bring it along for the ride.
That is what acceptance looks like for me right now. Not liking the exhaustion. Not pretending it is easy. Not deciding that nothing can change. But choosing not to add another layer of struggle by constantly insisting that my life should be somewhere other than where it is.
Jon Kabat-Zinn famously said: “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
I cannot make this season completely calm. But I can stop spending so much energy arguing with the ocean.
