Consider the familiar arc of someone who takes on extra shifts to “prove reliability,” answers messages at midnight, and feels proud of being indispensable. For months it seems to work—until one morning they wake up with a heavy, inexplicable fog, catch every cold, and can’t concentrate. Nothing dramatic changed externally; what changed is that the receipts finally totaled up.
This kind of delayed consequence illustrates Waga’s point: constant tiredness can masquerade as strength while actually signaling an unsustainable bargain. The body may cooperate for a time, but it rarely consents forever. [...]
