Other People Being More Tired Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Tired

00:01 While eating today, I was wondering

00:04 why I have felt so exhausted these past few days.

00:09 I had that thought,

00:10 but a second later, I wondered,

00:15 are other people not tired too?

00:17 Then I recalled scenes I had recently seen

00:21 of people I thought were working very hard.

00:26 For example, they were still working at night,

00:29 still working overtime.

00:32 Or now, during the May Day holiday,

00:35 some people go out and have fun,

00:37 while others are still working.

00:39 Compared with them,

00:44 my situation is actually still quite good.

00:50 By comparison,

00:54 I may not be working as hard as they are.

00:58 But I also think this way of thinking is wrong.

01:03 I feel tired,

01:08 and that is real.

01:10 That feeling exists.

01:13 Why do I not allow it to exist?

01:15 Why do I immediately find another example

01:18 to suppress my thought

01:20 and push my feeling down?

01:24 It suddenly occurred to me

01:25 that when we were children,

01:27 we often experienced

01:30 similar situations.

01:33 This is a classic form of emotional manipulation.

01:38 When someone feels

01:40 exhausted and worn out,

01:42 their next thought is to find

01:44 people or examples

01:47 who have it even harder and compare themselves.

01:51 Then they tell themselves,

01:53 I am not actually that tired

01:55 or working that hard.

01:57 If the exhaustion

01:59 comes from work,

02:01 they tell themselves,

02:04 other people's jobs are harder than mine

02:05 and more exhausting.

02:06 So what right do I have to say I am tired

02:09 or that this is hard?

02:10 They use guilt to manipulate themselves,

02:13 making their feelings about work...

02:21 Sigh, just their feelings.

02:22 They push that feeling down,

02:25 push down this...

02:28 I do not know how to say it anymore.

02:31 When we were children,

02:33 for example, if we were playing,

02:34 our parents might say,

02:38 "Look at so-and-so.

02:40 They are still studying,

02:42 while you play.

02:43 If your grades are worse than theirs,

02:44 isn't that exactly what you deserve?"

02:46 Or, "They are still studying

02:49 while you are playing.

02:50 What if their grades become better than yours?"

02:53 Things like that...

02:56 I do not know what to call it.

03:00 Putting them down?

03:01 Or what? Worrying...

03:04 No, not groundless worrying.

03:06 I cannot think of the right word

03:11 to describe this situation.

03:13 But I connect those situations

03:16 with what I just thought about

03:19 my own work feeling exhausting.

03:22 When I connect the two,

03:24 their patterns

03:25 and structures are the same.

03:28 When we are children,

03:31 our parents

03:32 or other adults may manipulate us

03:35 until we willingly study.

03:38 After we grow up,

03:40 we use the same pattern

03:41 and structure to manipulate ourselves,

03:44 making ourselves

03:50 stay immersed in work, I guess.

03:54 I think this way of thinking is deeply flawed.

04:00 Although sometimes I am very sensitive

04:04 and think,

04:06 because you chose this job yourself,

04:10 and you also chose not to leave it,

04:15 if you feel

04:17 that the job is exhausting and hard,

04:19 you could simply stop doing it.

04:21 You could give it up.

04:22 But why do you

04:25 keep staying

04:26 in such an exhausting environment?

04:29 Why keep struggling with this job?

04:35 After questioning myself that way,

04:38 I sometimes feel I brought it on myself.

04:42 I chose the exhaustion and hardship,

04:45 and I chose not to leave the job.

04:48 That was also my decision.

04:50 So what right do I have to say I am tired?

04:52 What right do I have to say it is hard?

04:55 I am genuinely very good at

04:58 pushing my own emotions down,

05:02 or denying that I feel them in the moment.

05:06 Then I decide those emotions are unreasonable.

05:11 Just now, I thought of other situations,

05:16 but after I finished what I was saying,

05:21 I forgot what those situations were.

05:27 I just feel that

05:31 in many

05:34 moments when we have certain feelings,

05:38 we should acknowledge them

05:40 and take them seriously,

05:42 rather than instinctively finding

05:45 other, more extreme examples

05:50 or counterexamples

05:52 to push our feelings down.

05:55 This instinctive response is deeply flawed.

06:01 Even though I now

06:03 recognize that I have this problem,

06:06 next time I may still use the same pattern

06:09 and structure to guilt myself.

06:13 Looking back,

06:15 I do not know whether

06:16 it came from things I heard as a child

06:20 that unconsciously affected me,

06:23 or whether

06:26 these habitual reactions

06:29 were gradually learned as I grew up.

06:34 Like I just said,

06:36 you chose this job,

06:38 so you chose the exhaustion and hardship too.

06:41 Is that kind of argument

06:42 really accurate?

06:46 Logically,

06:48 it seems to have no obvious flaw.

06:51 But

06:53 pure logic alone

06:55 also does not seem entirely right.

06:59 For example,

07:01 I used to wonder about

07:04 people who often

07:06 complain about work to their friends.

07:10 They say work is exhausting,

07:12 that it is very hard,

07:14 that their manager is like this,

07:16 and their coworkers are like that.

07:19 While listening,

07:20 I may feel that they are truly suffering.

07:24 Then a question automatically

07:25 enters my mind:

07:28 why do you not leave?

07:32 That question

07:36 enters my mind without my choosing it.

07:40 But I do not dare say it directly:

07:43 "Why don't you leave?"

07:46 I think that would be irresponsible.

07:48 Or perhaps

07:50 I have misunderstood what they are expressing.

07:55 Some people may feel

07:58 that they are only venting,

08:01 and have not actually reached

08:05 the point of wanting to leave from the pain.

08:07 Their only goal is to vent

08:11 and find some comfort from you.

08:14 Oh, right.

08:15 I finally remembered

08:16 what I had forgotten just now.

08:18 It was an example like this.

08:19 Let me continue.

08:20 When someone says certain things,

08:23 they may only want your comfort

08:26 and reassurance.

08:27 They mean nothing else.

08:29 But sometimes I

08:31 interpret that situation

08:33 as the person asking for help,

08:36 or having reached

08:37 a point they can no longer tolerate.

08:40 I am thinking of two previous examples.

08:45 In one, someone

08:47 told me their part-time job was exhausting.

08:53 At the time, I wondered,

08:55 if it is so tiring,

08:57 why do you keep doing it?

08:59 They were still a student.

09:01 I thought

09:02 that at this stage,

09:05 a student should be developing their skills,

09:09 seeing more of the world,

09:14 and experiencing more things.

09:16 Your student years are your freest time.

09:18 If you do not fully

09:22 explore yourself,

09:23 know yourself,

09:23 and engage with the world then,

09:25 after entering working life,

09:27 you may rarely have that much time

09:29 to arrange your own life and learning.

09:36 But

09:38 after I shared my advice and thoughts,

09:41 they said they had only wanted to complain.

09:46 They meant nothing else.

09:48 That was when I realized,

09:51 oh, what I thought and what they meant

09:53 were on different levels.

09:56 The second example was

09:59 that someone once

10:04 called me.

10:06 During the call,

10:08 they asked me many, many questions.

10:12 It was almost like they were interviewing me

10:15 and I was answering.

10:17 During that process,

10:19 after I answered certain questions,

10:25 they would ask,

10:27 "Why is it like that?

10:29 Why do you dare do that?

10:30 How are you able to do that?"

10:33 At the time, I thought,

10:35 why can't I do that?

10:36 Why wouldn't I dare?

10:37 Why wouldn't I dare do that?

10:39 Why shouldn't I do that?

10:43 It was almost as if

10:45 they thought that control over your life

10:47 was not actually in your hands.

10:51 But this is my life.

10:53 This is my work.

10:54 This is my life.

10:56 Why can't I make the decisions?

10:59 And those questions they asked,

11:01 why do you do that,

11:02 why do you dare do that,

11:04 how are you able to do that,

11:05 made me feel that underneath them...

11:10 How do I put it?

11:11 They had an assumption about me.

11:12 And that assumption was based

11:16 on the circumstances of most people today.

11:23 That assumption made me very uncomfortable.

11:27 I actually do not know

11:29 whether the "this" I chose,

11:31 the "this" I decided on,

11:33 and the "this" I am able to do

11:34 are actually okay,

11:38 or whether they are okay in the long term.

11:40 I really do not know.

11:43 But at least I am already on this path.

11:48 So how I will continue

11:54 or how it will develop,

11:59 I do not know either.

12:02 I keep feeling...

12:07 There is an English phrase, "go with the flow."

12:11 Some people may translate it as drifting along.

12:16 But to me, it is more like this:

12:18 the choice you make now

12:21 may guide you

12:23 toward your next step.

12:25 It is a little like

12:28 moving forward and seeing what happens.

12:31 I mean,

12:33 I do not set too many assumptions for my life.

12:37 I follow the direction it takes right now.

12:40 I go along with it.

12:42 If the path I am on does not work,

12:45 I can take another path.

12:51 Changing paths may come at a cost,

12:55 but at least...

12:57 I do not know anymore.

13:01 Anyway, a way will appear when I need one.

13:04 I believe there will be a solution.