Hungry, Angry, Lonely, TIRED

After she hung up, I rubbed my temples, tired and frustrated.  I shut my eyes for a second. The night before I had watched too many episodes of a Netflix series, telling myself I’d catch up on sleep the next night. That second turned into minutes, and I woke up sitting at my desk, wondering for a moment how I got there.

I repeated the AA slogan out loud, “Hungry, angry, lonely, tired -don’t let yourself get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.”

Over the years, I’d learned tired was the sneakiest of the four. Anger was a mugger. You knew when it hit you, and you saw the damage right away.  Hunger and loneliness were stalkers.  They followed you until you did something about them or learned to live with them.

Tired was a thief. Tired liked to steal whole afternoons from me when I was too worn down to focus. Tired stole small things I didn’t miss until I needed them, like information from a meeting, or an awareness of life’s warning signs.

I made up my mind to get to bed early that night. One episode at most…

Today I’ll beware of tired, the thief.

Burnout Training ©2018 by Ken Montrose

Burnout Training is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at: www.greenbriartraining.com https://www.pinterest.com/kenmontrose/mt-rose/