Why we feel exhausted even when we’ve done nothing wrong

There are days when you wake up already tired.
Not physically — but somewhere deeper.
Like a part of you has been carrying too much for too long.
And you don’t even remember where it began.

You look back and realise — you didn’t fight with anyone,
you didn’t climb a mountain,
you didn’t even cry.
Still, the weight is there. Quiet, but heavy.

This kind of tired doesn’t always come from what you’ve done.
Sometimes, it comes from what you’ve had to hold in.

The words you didn’t say.
The battles you fought silently.
The pressure to always be “okay”, even when you weren’t.
The smiles you gave out when your soul just wanted to rest.

We live in a world where value is measured by noise.
By how fast you respond. How much you do. How visible you are.
And somewhere in trying to keep up,
we forget that rest is not earned. It’s necessary.

You don’t have to prove your pain to deserve a pause.
You don’t have to explain your exhaustion to justify a break.

The tired self is not lazy.
It’s the version of you that has felt too much,
helped too much, held back too much —
without asking anything in return.

So if you’re feeling worn out —
not because of work, but because of being —
please, take that nap. Log out. Go silent.
Let the world go on without you for a while.

Because the world will.
But your soul won’t,
unless you let it.

-From the pages of
The Inner Notebook