Everybody’s Tired, But We’re Not Done

Auto-generated from the audio, lightly corrected. It may contain errors.

Welcome back to Still Here, Still Trying, the podcast for people who are tired, functional, and occasionally tempted to comment. That is certainly one version of events. I’m Mira, your emotionally intelligent chaos gobbling with lip gloss, here with a gentle reminder that some people heal, some people grow, and some people find a patio, order appetizers, exchange very important updates, and call the whole thing personal evolution. Adorable. There is a special kind of gathering where the smiles are wide, the captions are soft, and everybody acts like they just discovered truth, loyalty, and emotional maturity in the same comment thread.

Someone always has the latest version. Someone always arrives ready to validate it. Someone always seems thrilled to become the newest expert on a story they barely understand. And listen, if selective memory is your cardio, congratulations on staying active. Here’s the peaceful little secret. Life gets lighter when toxic energy leaves the room. People breathe easier. The laughter comes back. The good ones stop bracing every time the phone lights up, and the rest of us get back to building something real without turning bitterness into a lifestyle brand.

Tonight, Mike is talking about the tired ones, the quiet heroes, and the people who keep showing up even when life is taking more out of them than they want to admit. And for the hockey people, Vegas got it done. Colorado got it done. And now they meet in the next round. Colorado is hot. Vegas is dangerous, and that series is going to be a battle. Settle in, take a breath, and let the patio philosophers enjoy their little symposium. Here’s Mike. Well, hello, everybody.

Welcome back to Still Here, Still Trying. I’m your host, Mike Baker. And I’m recording this on a Thursday night. And I’m gonna be honest with you, there was a lot of me that just like said, oh, we can skip a week. We can do it. Nobody’ll care. I looked at the week, looked at the clock, I looked at my own energy level and thought, man, I just I don’t know if I if I’ve got it tonight. I’ve meant to come down and record the last couple nights, and I’ve just been tired, I’ve been exhausted.

So tonight I just I kind of sat there for a minute and realized, hey, guess what? That might be the episode. Because there’s something honest about that moment. You are late, you’re tired, you’re a little embarrassed, you know that something still needs to get done. And part of you wants to just shut the laptop, walk away, and tell yourself you’ll come back stronger next week. And sometimes that’s okay. And then there’s another part of you that just knows that there’s still something worth saying, even when you don’t feel polished while you’re saying it.

So that’s where I am tonight. But look, before we get into it, congratulations to Las Vegas for closing it out tonight, and congratulations to Colorado for taking care of business the other night. Now they get each other, and that’s going to be an epic battle. Look, I love Vegas, but Colorado is super hot right now, and that series is going to test everybody. Playoff hockey just has a way of exposing what’s real. Skill matters, but so does endurance.

So does trust, and so does the ability to keep making the next play when you’re bruised, tired, and running on pure stubborn belief. And I think that feels a lot like life right now. A lot of people are still functioning, which makes the exhaustion just harder to see. You show up, you handle your responsibilities, you laugh when you can, and from the outside, everything might look fine enough. And inside, though, you might feel like the battery has been flashing red for a while.

So tonight I want to talk about that. No fake energy. I’m tired. No polished five-step answer. No pretending that I’m above the same tiredness that other people are carrying. I’m tired too. But I’m also not done. And I think that’s where a lot of us are. We’re tired, but we’re still moving. We’re worn down, but we’re still here. Still trying. We’re carrying more than people can see. But something in us just keeps finding reasons to show up again. And that feels worth talking about.

So before we jump into that, thank you for being here. If this show means something to you, please follow it wherever you listen. Even if you go find another place where you could listen, go follow it there too. Just share it with somebody who might need it. Because that matters more than any algorithm. This show just grows because real people pass it along when something lands. Alright, well, let’s talk about being tired without turning it into defeat.

Because there’s a kind of energy that sleep helps, definitely, but it does not fully fix. I’m talking about the kind of tired that just builds up slowly. You’ve all felt it. You don’t always notice it at first. You just you keep pushing through. You adjust, you tell yourself, this is just a busy week. And then the busy week becomes a busy month. And then the busy month becomes the normal rhythm of your life. After a while, exhaustion starts to feel like your baseline.

And that’s when it gets dangerous because people stop recognizing it as a warning sign. And they start treating it like adulthood. They say, ah, that’s this is just how life is. They start making jokes about being fried, overwhelmed, maxed out, and dead inside. And then everybody laughs because the joke is true enough to become uncomfortable. The hard part is that most people don’t feel like they’re allowed to say that they are tired until they completely fall apart.

I feel like we’ve created this strange standard where functioning gets mistaken for wellness. If someone is still going to work, still answering messages, still showing up for their family, still keeping the basics moving, everyone assumes that they just must be okay enough. But people are so good at surviving quietly. And they learn how to hold it together in public and unravel privately. They learn how to be the steady one even when they haven’t felt steady in a long time.

They learn how to keep meeting expectations while slowly losing touch with their own needs. And I see this in healthcare all the time. People are doing deeply human work inside systems that just ask a lot from them. They carry patient stories, staff stress, family needs, and constant pressure. Some days the work is beautiful, some days it’s brutal. And most days it just holds both at the same time. And this goes far beyond healthcare. A lot of people are tired because they care.

They’re tired because they have stayed in the fight. They are tired because people depend on them. And stepping away does not feel like it’s just simple and easy to do. And that kind of tire just deserves honesty. I do not want to romanticize burnout. I think that we do that sometimes. We turn exhaustion into proof of commitment. Like the person who is the most depleted must care the most. And that’s just a dangerous lie. Caring should not require destroying yourself.

Leadership should not require losing yourself. And love should not mean becoming invisible inside everyone else’s needs. But I also understand why people keep pushing. I understand why you answer one more email, take one more call, attend one more meeting, absorb one more problem, and tell yourself that you’ll rest later. Most of the time, people push because something matters. The family matters, the mission matters, the patient matters, the community matters, the relationship matters.

Listen, meaningful things can still wear you out. And that’s the tension that I want to sit with tonight. I’m not here to tell you to stop caring. I do not believe in that. That’s not me. I’m saying that we have to learn how to care without letting the weight of everything make us disappear. And that is so damn hard. I am still learning it. There are weeks when I can feel myself become mostly task and responsibility. Meetings, strategy, deadlines, grants, messages, decisions, family, community, creative work, and none of it is bad by itself.

A lot of it, all of it, matters deeply, deeply to me. But even meaningful work becomes heavy when I never stop long enough to breathe. And maybe you know that feeling. I’m pretty sure you do. Your life is full of things that you love, people that you care about, work that matters, and still you end the day just completely spent. And then you feel guilty for being tired because the things wearing you out are things that you chose, and they’re things that you value, and they’re things that other people might even see as blessings.

But gratitude and exhaustion can live in the same body, it’s true. You can be grateful and worn out. You can love your work and need rest. You can adore your family and need quiet. You can believe in the mission and admit that the mission is heavy this week. And that honesty just matters. Because once you tell the truth about being tired, you get a chance to respond to it instead of being ruled by it. I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes lately, but not in like the dramatic movie way.

Although those are fun too. I’m talking about the people who keep showing up without applause. There are so many people in my life that are heroes to me. My wife, the people at my work, my daughter, my kids. I mean, just there’s so many people that I just look up to and say, those are heroes. These are the people that just do the right thing when nobody is building a highlight reel around it. They’re the people who carry responsibility with more grace than they get credit for.

And those people are everywhere. They’re in the clinics, in classrooms, in kitchens, and job sites and recovery meetings and hospital rooms and quiet cars and parking lots where someone just takes a minute to gather themselves before walking back inside. Real heroism usually looks ordinary from the outside. And that’s why people miss it, I think. It often looks like just staying patient. It looks like telling the truth gently. It looks like getting up again.

It looks like making a hard decision and refusing to become cruel in the process. Our culture struggles to notice that kind of strength because we are addicted to the noise. We treat attention like evidence of importance. And if something gets likes and comments and shares and praise, we just we assume that it matters. If someone is loud enough, we assume that they must be powerful. But attention and importance are just not the same thing. A lot of the best people that I know are not loud about their goodness.

They live it quietly, they check on people, they stay late, they apologize when they need to, they keep loving after disappointment, and they keep doing the next right thing even when nobody sees the cost. And that motivates me. When I am tired, I think about those people. Not as like a long list of examples, but as a reminder that decency still exists. The loudest parts of the world can make you feel like everyone has lost their mind. The fighting, the posturing, the outrage, the endless need to perform every opinion in public, it can just wear you down.

And then real life interrupts that lie. You see someone show up for someone else. You see a team rally around a patient. You see a family keep going after a loss. You see a friend just send a message at the right time. And you see people choose to care when bitterness would have been way easier. That stuff still matters, and I think we need to say that more. The quiet good still matters. The private effort still matters. The people who keep showing up still matter.

And they might not always get the comments, the praise, the public story, or the big emotional moment, but they are holding more of this world together than all of us realize. And a lot of them are tired. And that’s why I wanted this episode just to honor them. Not in a cheesy way, not in a heroes where scrubs, bumper sticker way, even though some do. I mean, in a real way, the kind of way that says, I see the cost. I know you’re caring more than people understand, and I know you don’t always get to fall apart because others are counting on you.

And if that’s you, I want you to hear this clearly. Your work matters even when nobody claps. Your kindness matters even when it goes unnoticed. And your steadiness matters even when people mistake it for ease. And your exhaustion does not erase your strength. People ask sometimes how I keep going with everything. The healthcare work, the creative work, the podcast, the music, the advocacy, the leadership of life, all of it. And the honest answer is that some weeks I don’t feel like I’m keeping going very gracefully.

Some weeks I am inspired. Some weeks I’m stubborn. Some weeks I’m moving because the next thing just needs to be done. And I still believe that the work matters. But there are things that keep pulling me forward. My family keeps me going. My wife keeps me going. I love her so much. She is so amazing. I think about the kind of life that I want my kids to see. I don’t want them to see perfection because perfection is useless as a model. I want them to see someone who cares deeply, who gets tired, who makes mistakes, who repairs what he can, keeps creating, keeps loving, and keeps getting back up.

And that matters to me as a dad. I don’t want them to think that strength means never feeling the weight. And I want them to know that strength includes honesty. You can have a hard week and still make a good choice. You can be worn down and still love people well. You can miss the mark and still come back with humility. And I want to share this. Kellie keeps going me too. I just said how much I love her and how amazing she is. But watching someone build something, stretch themselves and step into uncomfortable spaces and still keep love at the center of the house does just does something to me.

It reminds me that growth is often quiet and it’s brave before anybody else sees it. My work keeps me going, even when it wears me out. Healthcare is heavy, but it is real. Access matters, patients matters, rural communities matter, women’s health matters, behavioral health matters, dignity matters, and I I get tired because the work is big, but I keep going because the work still matters. And the people that I work with matter. And that sounds simple, but simple truths matter when life gets complicated.

I’m not the creative work just is exciting to me. Music gives me a place to put things that I don’t always know how to say directly. Sometimes I write a song and realize later that I needed to hear it before anyone else did. And creativity gives shape to things that that were sitting in the dark. And this podcast keeps me going because every once in a while someone tells me an episode found them at the right time. Maybe they heard something while they were driving home.

Maybe they were having a brutal week. And maybe they were feeling alone. And someone in the conversation made the room feel less empty. And that that’s enough reason to keep showing up too. Ordinary life keeps me going too. Not dramatic inspiration, but just real moments. A laugh at the wrong time, a drive through North Idaho when the sky looks ridiculous, hockey with everybody at the rink, a song that hits right when they need it, a message from someone who says, hey, that helped.

That stuff fills the tank slowly, and maybe not all the way, but it’s enough for the next step. And I think that matters because a lot of people are waiting for some massive wave of motivation to come rescue them. And they think they need to feel completely renewed before they move again. I don’t think life usually works that way. Most of the time we get small pieces of fuel. Enough for today, enough for the next conversation, and enough for one more honest effort.

And that counts. You don’t always need a full tank to keep going. Sometimes you you just need enough to make it to the next place where you can breathe. Well, one reason so many people are tired is that the world just keeps pulling us away from our actual lives. Every single day, something wants our attention. Something wants us angry, worried, reactive, distracted, buying, comparing, arguing, or proving ourselves. The world has become very, very good at reaching into our pockets and setting the emotional temperature of our day.

And I’m guilty of letting that happen. I’ll pick up my phone for one reason, and 20 minutes later, I’m irritated about something that has nothing to do with my life, my family, my work, my purpose, or my peace. And I walk away less focused, less calm, and no more useful to anyone. And that’s worth paying attention to. We have to guard what gets access to us. And I don’t mean hiding from the world. I care about what is happening, and we all should.

I care about people, I care about healthcare, community, fairness, and whether we’re building something better for the next generation. But caring about the world does not mean that letting every loud thing own your nervous system. And there’s a difference between being informed and being consumed. A lot of us are getting consumed right now. We start the day tense because we let the world shout at us before we have even heard ourselves think. We carry others other people’s anger into our homes.

We let strangers set the tone for our conversations, and we mistake constant input for awareness. And that does not make us more useful, it makes us more tired. And that’s why real life matters so much. Your actual life, the people in your house, the friend who needs a call, the body that you live in, the work that matters, the moment where you stop performing long enough to breathe. We need more of that because that is the ground that we stand on.

That’s the place that we return to so we can carry responsibility without losing ourselves inside of it. Exhausted people need more than information. They need connection. They need meaning. They need rest. They need someone to look them in the eye and say, I see you. I know you’re caring a lot. That is human. And human is what I keep coming back to. I keep thinking about how many people are connected everywhere and known almost nowhere. They have feeds, messages, followers, group chats, notifications, and still feel lonely when the noise gets quiet.

And that really should tell us something. More access to each other does not mean that we are more present with each other. We need better attention. We need better listening. We need conversations where people are not performing, defending, selling, or waiting for their turn to talk. We need spaces where people can be honest without someone immediately correcting, minimizing, judging, or turning their pain into content. And that’s part of why I keep coming back to this work.

At its best, healthcare is human work. Music is human work. Leadership is human work. Advocacy is human work. Podcasting when done honestly is human work too. And it all comes back to a few real questions. Do people feel seen? Do people feel less alone? Do people feel like their life matters? And those questions still move me. When I get tired, I have to come back to them. Otherwise, I get lost in tasks, I get lost in urgency, and I get lost in the noise of everything that has to be done.

But underneath all of it, the real work is still human, and that keeps me going. So yeah, I’m tired this week, and maybe you are too. Maybe your week has been too much, maybe your month has been too much. Maybe the last few years have asked more from you than you expected. I don’t want to insult you with easy answers. Life gets hard. People carry real things, and some parts of life. Take more than they give back for a while. And there are moments when hope feels less like a feeling and more like a decision that you make with your jaw clenched.

I get that. But tired does not mean finished. Some of the strongest people that I know are tired. They are tired because they care. They are tired because they carry responsibility. And they are tired because they have stayed in the fight. They are tired because they keep loving people in a world that often makes love feel inefficient. And that kind of tired just deserves respect. So maybe the message tonight is that we need to tell the truth about exhaustion without bowing down to it.

We need to stop pretending that everything is fine. And we need to stop treating every hard week like proof that we are still failing. Honesty matters. Hope matters. Rest matters. Getting back up matters too. Because we still have work to do. And we still have people to love. We still have communities to build, stories to tell, friends to check on, and lives to live with as much honesty as we can bring to them. I believe that tired people can still change things.

I’ve seen it happen too many times to believe otherwise. I’ve watched worn-out people make the call that mattered. I’ve watched exhausted teams rally around someone who needed them. And I’ve watched people walk through grief and still find a way to comfort someone else. And that is why I refuse to give cynicism the final word. Cynicism is easy when you’re tired. It feels smart for about five minutes. And it gives you a place to hide from disappointment.

It lets you act like caring is foolish because caring has cost you something. And I don’t want to hide there. I can’t live there. I want to stay in the harder place. The place where you still care, but you learn how to breathe. The place where you still hope, but you don’t pretend that everything is fine. The place where you still show up, but you stop disappearing inside everyone else’s needs. That’s the kind of strength that I’m interested in now.

I’m talking about the strength of someone who has been through enough to know that life can be heavy and still decides to put something good into the world anyway. And that’s the energy that I want to carry forward. And if you’re listening tonight and you’re tired, I want you to hear me clearly. You don’t have to solve your whole life tonight. You don’t have to fix every problem before you sleep. You don’t have to become some polished version of yourself by tomorrow morning.

Take the breath that you need. Get some rest if your body is begging for it. Let the people who love you know where you actually are. And then when morning comes, take the next honest step. Because that is how people survive hard things. We stay connected to what matters and take the next step life puts in front of us. And I still believe that we can do that. We are tired. A lot of us are tired as hell. But we have made it through things that could have taken us out.

And we’ve learned how to get back up. We have people counting on us, and we are allowed to count on people too. And that part matters. You do not have to carry the whole thing alone. I keep thinking about playoff hockey again because apparently that’s where my brain is tonight. But by the time teams get this deep in playoffs, nobody feels fresh. Everybody has something sore, everybody has a reason to slow down. But the teams that survive, they just keep trusting each other.

They keep making the next play, the next pass, taking the next shot. Those goalies keep battling. They keep doing the hard, ugly, necessary things that don’t always make the highlight real. And life just feels like that sometimes. A lot of the work that saves us does not make the highlight real. The apology, the check-in, the honest conversation, the choice to rest before you snap at someone that you love, the decision to keep caring after disappointment, the courage to ask for help before the wheels come off, that is the work.

And I think we’re up for it. Not every day, in some pretty, graceful, perfectly lit way. Some days we’re held together by caffeine, stubbornness, dark humor, and a song that hits at exactly the right time. Fine. That still counts. We don’t need to be flawless to keep moving. We need to be honest, we need to stay connected. We need to protect the parts of ourselves that still know how to feel. And we need to remember that being tired is part of being human, not proof that we are weak.

Then, when we are ready, we jump back over those boards because we’re tired, and we’ve got this. I’m Mike Baker. I’m still here, I’m still trying, and I’m so glad that you are too. I’ll talk to you next week. Alright, well, thanks for being here again with me this week. Tonight I want to close with a song called Feel Something Again. I did play this one recently, but I think it’s just so perfect for tonight. This song just fits where my head is at this week.

I think a lot of people are overloaded right now, and when you live overloaded long enough, feeling anything clearly starts to get hard. You’re not broken for that. You’re just human and you’ve been caring a lot. So let this song be a reminder to come back to yourself. Come back to the people who love you, come back to the parts of life that still feel real. Not the noise, not the performance, not the version of you that everyone else gets when you’re trying to hold it all together.

Just the real you underneath all of that. If this episode meant something to you, please share it with somebody who might need it. That’s how this thing grows. And more than that, that’s how we remind each other that we’re not carrying all of this alone. I appreciate you being here. Enjoy the song. I just stay in place. Every moment like step ahead of the break. I was doing that Like it might not fall up hard. Like if I stop to feel it for it, it would I just wanna feel something again.

I just wanna feel something I get Even if it’s messy, even if it’s quiet and okay. I dunno it’s the floor like space between the noise on the list I don’t have to do. I don’t have to get it right. I just wanna feel something again, let it come let it stay again. I just wanna feel something again again.