September is generally a rough month in our house.  My wife teaches, 2 kids, and sports restarting, it goes from relax mode in August to full bore in short order.  Combined with some large scale issues at work, I’m starting to feel the bits pulling me down.

I tend to go full out in things that I do. I don’t like half-speed.  That usually means that I go until I drop.  For a long time that meant that during vacations my body would just shut down and force me to sleep.  I’ve taken steps in recent years to find a better balance on that, so that I can actually enjoy my vacations.

The past 4 weeks haven’t been so neat.  Stomach flu and now what feels like a man-cold.  I’ve had runny noses, coughs, headaches… all sorts of fun. I just work through it.  Even workouts while feeling a bit down.  Right now, it’s more like overall exhaustion.  And the mind games that plays is not so fun.

I know that being off work doesn’t stop work.  I know my team is in a crunch mode right now, and I’m trying to keep some of the brass from pushing down.  Stepping away to heal up would help me, but would negatively impact 20 people.  And I’m hard headed enough to believe that.

It makes me think more about what motivates me now as when I was younger.  I’ve always had the mindset of “one step, and then another”, but the raison d’etre is the kicker.  I’d be motivated by internal forces to prove myself to others, even to myself.  That’s still there in parts, but nowdays I do it because I know of the impacts on other people.

Still, I know it’s self defeating.  The body will win out in the end.  Where I could take a day or two and get better, as compared to being 50% effective for a week+…that should be a fairly easy call.  Dumb brain.