Sound familiar? I'm beginning to think, 'I'm tired' is the new 'fine.' As in,' how are you?' 'Fine.' Which essentially means nothing but, 'I heard you say how are you and I know we don't really have the time to talk so I'm going to utter something reasonably meaningless and then we'll both know that we were courteous and move on.
The problem is that, 'I'm tired' means more than that, to the asker and the askee and I'm wondering if we're not beginning to convince ourselves that we are, indeed, actually tired. Think about the conversation that starts this piece. "I'm" not 'tired' because of what I've done. I'm tired because of what's in front of me. I'm debilitated by future events, so much so that I'm physically reacting to what needs to be done. But would we be so 'tired' if we just went back to 'fine?'
At least 'fine' meant nothing - to you or to me. To you fine meant, 'ok, conversation over.' To me it meant, 'getting on to the next thing.' Remember how irritating it was when someone actually answered your question? 'How are you?' 'Wow, thanks so much for asking.' (You're immediately thinking, asking what?) 'I'm suffering from a little goiter and I have HUGE anxiety about going to the doctor because I just know they're going to take some blood.' (What? What am I supposed to do with that?) So we just all nodded and said, 'wow, great, ok, see you soon,' and moved on.'
Think about it yourself ... are you really tired? Really? Why? Is your tiredness a choice you're making? Staying up too late watching Seinfeld reruns? To be honest, unless you're tired because you worked 18 hours yesterday in a soup kitchen I don't really care that you're tired. You're talking to a guy who gets up most mornings around 5:15. Drives 40 miles to work around 10 hours before driving home 40 miles to ride a bike for 45 minutes to make dinner, walk the dog and go to bed. I'm not tired. I'm disgustingly exhilarated by each new day. You should be too!
Tired ... bah!
4 comments:
I was gonna leave a thoughtful comment, but I got tired thinking about it..
It's 40 miles to work?? What are we crazy? Love the post. Good to think about while driving to class tonight. I'm pretty sure Papa Villa never said he was tired :) He's who I think about when I start to "think I'm tired"... Although if he might have said he was tired a couple times but if he did I'm sure he would have just blamed it on THE MAN and moved on. haha
Well said! Here's another one that can be annoying (heard today): "How are you?" "Well, it's Friday."
Brilliant!
I am the laziest person!! I DO spend too much time watching TV. I think I'm gonna watch a little bit RIGHT NOW....
:)
good post, Jim,
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