Good Tired

There is a quote by Harry Chapin that I wanted to share. He tells a story about his grandfather, who differentiates between good tired and bad tired. The point is that in order to be good tired, you do not necessarily need to be successful. You may fail, but if you fail at something you care about, something for which you have a passion, you can go to sleep that night happy. I think this is so powerful because we all spend an incredible amount of time on things we do not particularly care about- not because we want to, but because we think we have to. I hear so many of my fellow students profess their disinterest in their classes- about how little they connect to the subject matter or substance. In Harry Chapin’s mind, they are bad tired. Even if they get an A+ in the class, they go to sleep bad tired. Obviously we cannot all drop our required courses for interesting electives, but hopefully this quote can inspire an effort to increase the amount of time we spend on pursuing our own interests, and defying the idea that widespread definition of “success” is the only way to ensure thay when we do finally rest our heads at night, we are good tired.

“My grandfather was a painter. He died at age 88. He illustrated Robert Frost’s first two books of poetry. And he was looking at me and he said, “Harry, there’s two kinds of tired. There’s good tiredand there’s bad tired.”

He said, “Ironically enough, bad tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people’s battles, you lived other people’s days, other people’s agendas, other people’s dreams, and when it’s all over there was very little you in there. And when you hit the hay at night, somehow you toss and turn, you don’t settle easy.”

He said, “Good tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you won’t even have to tell yourself, because you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days. And when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy, you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say, “Take me away.”

He said, “Harry, all my life I’ve wanted to be a painter and I’ve painted. God, I would have loved to have been more successful, but I’ve painted, and I’ve painted, and I am good tired, and they can take me away.”

Now if there is a process in your and my lives in the insecurity that we have about a prior life or an afterlife, and God (I hope there is a god – if he does exist, he’s got a rather weird sense of humour however)…

But if there is a process that will allow us to live our days, that will allow us that degree of equanimity towards the end, looking at that black implacable wall of death to allow us that degree of peace, that degree of non-fear, I want in.”

—Harry Chapin

Good Tired