Countdowns, Walls, and Why You're So Tired

Why Nehemiah should inspire you to push on.

We’ve probably all heard the lecture on why to finish well. I’ve heard this at church retreats, in high school classes, in residencies, and from mentors. There’s a lot of truth in this lecture of needing to finish well, but it’s typically drowned out in the repetition and begins to lose its effect. It’s something important that we all need to hear, and not merely listen to. You need to finish well if you are at the end of something. Better yet, you need to push on until you reach the end, and sometimes that can be difficult.

For me, this is the lesson that I’m currently living and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It has been on the forefront of my mind every single time I look at my phone for the past two or three weeks. Right now, the background for my phone is simply the number “9.” It has changed every time I’ve gone to work at the sports bar. After my shift on Friday, it’s going to change to the number eight. I’m ready to finish, and I’ve been counting down shifts for a few weeks. These last few shifts have been especially hard. I’ve entertained the thought of simply not showing up to work more times than I care to admit. Finishing well in something that I despise is tough. Pushing through some of the less glamorous aspects of waiting tables has been difficult. Pair this with the fact that the sports bar has gotten so much busier, and it has felt borderline impossible. The weather is nicer, there are no holidays pressing people’s checkbooks, and tax returns are making people feel a lot more willing to go out for dinner rather than stay in and cook. It’s very rare for me to get home before midnight, when I originally started the day at 9am. Then, I start the whole process all over again the next morning.

Simply, I am tired.

You. You’re tired too. We all are. I recently watched a Netflix documentary “Take Your Pills” that was covering young adults’ need for Adderall. A big part of the documentary discussed the effects of the drug and why many students in particular will take Adderall to increase their productivity. Because there’s not enough hours in the day, and they need to double what they can do during the 24 hours that we all have. At the core of this documentary was the prevailing thought of, “Our culture is pushing us all past our limits.” In my case, it’s economic. If I don’t work two jobs, my wife and I eat hot dogs in tortillas for every meal. For many, it’s about achievement. If you want that job, you have to take the internship and finish your classes, at the same time. If you want the promotion, you have to put in the unpaid overtime and complete more projects than your peers. Either way, we’re all pushed almost too far. We’re all tired.

The past few days I’ve read through the book of Nehemiah in the Bible. It’s an Old Testament book about a man who goes back to Jerusalem, after the city had laid in ruins for dozens of years, and decides to rally the troops together and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. It’s an inspiring story. So often it’s taught in the manner of “You need to be brave,” because almost everything that Nehemiah did was brave. He left a great job, in an industry leading city, and went into a war ravaged area to stand in opposition to many of the local leaders because he was doing what he thought was right. But, I think there’s a major part of Nehemiah's story that we breeze right over. Nehemiah pushed through immense amounts of stress. When he started the project, everything was going well for him. God had given him safe travels, he had gotten almost all that he needed, because the King had given it to him, and the people wanted to rebuild the wall, so recruitment wasn’t tough.

But, then he runs into the local leaders. These people planned attacks against Nehemiah to stop him from building the wall, then they planned on blackmailing him, and again told him that they are going to slaughter him and his people. The threats were taken so seriously that Nehemiah had half of the people stand guard while the other half worked. And he told the half that were working to keep a weapon on them at all times. Nehemiah lost all of his momentum because of the local leaders They made him fearful, paranoid, worried, and stressed. He had to put in long days, with little return, and was undoubtedly tired.

Yet, he pushed through. Nehemiah’s story is always remembered because he actually finished the job. He built the wall. He finished well. Daniel Pink, an incredibly intelligent researcher and author, talks a lot about finishing in his book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. One of his thoughts really caught my attention: people are remembered for how they finished. If a terrible person does some really incredibly generous things, and then dies suddenly, they will be remembered as a saint. In comparison, if a person that is typically very generous becomes crotchety and mean before an unexpected death, they won’t be remembered all that well.

I wish with all of my heart that my phone background was a 1 right now. But it’s not, so until I can change that to a zero after my final shift at the sports bar, I’m going to finish well, and I’m going to push through.

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