You pick and chose your battles

You feel exhausted. But as you try to remember the event of the past couple of weeks, you cannot think of any reason for this.

You have slowly been losing your initial energy meter, and now you wake up feeling tired after suffering from a restless sleep with uneasy dreams.

By all means you should not be feeling this way. You live in peaceful times, and the economy has never been more booming. You had a stable childhood, free from any of the traditional trauma, and now you have a steady job with a steady income that is supporting your comfortable lifestyle. And yet, you cannot stop feeling tired.

This is the first time in what seemed like forever that you are able to pause and take some time for yourself. And as you lay there on your bed, on a Sunday morning, listening to the sounds of birds sneaking through your closed window, along with the lazy warm rays of a spring sun, your mind seems to relax a little bit, and you can try to self-reflect.

You try to retrace your steps, when was the last time you felt energetic and not tired, and what were the moments that you felt take a toll on you? And you start to notice a pattern.

Each time you try to express yourself, your feelings, and what you believe in, you were bombarded with opposing views of rejection and ridicule. And each time this happened, it takes a little out of your energy pool. Until eventually… You have none left.

Now, given how little of yourself you were made to feel, you start to question your own beliefs, and for a second there. You contemplate just going back to sleep and formfitting everything. But then you go through these moments of self-doubt, these moments of ridicule.

And eventually, it all boils down to the self-righteousness of people who believe that their battles are more important than yours. People constantly trying to one-up each other. And you get caught in the crossfire for now supporting the same battles as they do.

You are not against these people, not by a long shot, in most cases you sympathize, and you support their right to fight for what they believe in. But in the end, people seem to always demand that your energy is wasted and that you stand against them, if you have chosen to fight for something else other than what they believe in, and that they deem to be unworthy. Until eventually, you stopped fighting.

But, you come to the realization that you do choose your own battles, and just because on the surface yours seem to be less grand and more personal, or just simply different, it doesn’t take away from the gravity or importance of your battles.

And just like that, you feel a new surge of energy engulfing you as you take ownership of your own unique human experience. Knowing that you get to choose where to direct your finite amount of energy. And most importantly, knowing that your battles are not less important than those of others.