The Lost Art of Exhaustion: How Modern Comfort Is Weakening Our Minds and Our Children
- avickymo
- Apr 11
- 3 min read
There’s something deeply off about the way we live now.
Adults walk around, heads down, eyes glued — overworked yet under-moved, mentally tired but physically wired. Our kids, somehow, are even more restless. And what’s worse, we’re calling it normal.
This post was inspired by my own children and my extended family. Whenever we visit them, I see a different version of my kids: more engaged, constantly moving, happy, grounded. No big plans, no fancy toys — just a house full of people, chaos, energy, and outdoor time. It’s loud, it’s imperfect, but it’s real in the here and now. They sleep better. We sleep better. It reminds me that we’ve lost something. Is it the village we traded away?
I’ve also been thinking about this generational narrative — the older folks calling the younger ones “soft” or “snowflakes.” And I wonder… is there truth to it?
Maybe.
Because there isn’t suffering for most of us. There isn’t scarcity. There isn’t anything really unavailable anymore — we can get everything we have ever wanted delivered, without ever leaving the house.
And while that's a testament to progress, I can't help but ask: how many young people today want to do hard labor? To walk a few blocks instead of calling an Uber? To fix something with their hands instead of replacing it? And — here's the twist — it's not their fault.
We created this.
It came from a good place: every parent’s dream that their offspring wouldn’t have it hard like they did. We wished for their lives to be easier, to be better.
But maybe… we solved it in the wrong way.
Because in making everything easier, we also took away some of the very things that build us. We removed the friction. The effort. The exhaustion. The satisfaction. The pride. And with it, we lost something sacred: the satisfaction of earned rest, and the resilience that grows from struggle.
In the past, people didn’t need fancy sleep routines. They were so physically tired by day’s end — from walking, working, building, carrying, harvesting — they just slept. Deeply. Completely. Because their body and mind were in sync.
Now, we live in a constant state of half-stimulation. Scrolling but not engaging. Sitting but not resting. Kids are bouncing off walls because they have all this energy and nowhere real to put it. The adults too. So we snap, we spiral, we numb out — and then try to self-care our way back to balance.
We need challenge. We need movement. We need purpose in our hands and in our legs. We need to go outside more. Plant something. Build something. Walk somewhere, heck run! My little boy's favorite activity is to run as fast as he can wherever he can. When did we stop doing that? Feel the cold wind on our faces and sweat on our backs. Connect with the rhythms of nature again.
I see my children begging for it, not with words, but with their joy. Their peace. Their sleep, when they’ve had a full day of physical play and fresh air. And yes, I still use screens more than I should — I’m not perfect - I also live in the modern parenting world. My heart sits heavy with guilt, so I choose a nature program as a compromise.
I also feel the pull the other way, like a distant call and I'm figuring out my way back, the one we came from. The one we might still return to, in pieces, if we try.
Because maybe true rest — and real resilience — aren’t things we need to hack or optimize.
Maybe they’re things we need to remember.
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