Tired, scared, depressed people are easier to control and less likely to fight back. It is quicker to temporarily feed anxiety with trinkets than to create structures to dismantle and prevent anxiety.
It is not your fault if you are exploited in these ways. You are not weak, or bad, or "not trying hard enough" if you feel the weight of the world upon you, if it takes all you have just to survive. It's okay if you have ups and downs, if one day you're able to do many things and the next barely get out of bed. You did not create the system we are all trying to function within, one that punishes what it cannot exploit.
But your ongoing survival is a message that you are not defeated. Every single moment you are here offers the opportunity to try again, to be better, to grow and change and learn. Missed the last opportunity? That's okay, another one will come along any moment now, and the next, and the next. You just choose which one is the best for stepping aboard a new pathway, when you're ready. If it takes a while because you are, in fact, tired, scared, depressed, that's okay. There are many, many moments before you and who knows what could go right?
Self-care is rebellion. Joy is a radical act. Love--given to others, and above all to yourself--is a key part of the antidote to what ails us. Even if your embodiments of these are not big and momentous, they are no less important a part of your ongoing story, and the weaving of a better world.
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