Being tired sucks.

Being tired just sucks. It really really sucks.

Sitting at work during ones 90 day eval period, and genuinely wanting to exceed expectations, but being to tired to move is where I am at right now.

Americans weren't always this tired though. There was a day and age when people got plenty of sleep, and the sleep they were getting wasn't equated with losing money. So what the hell happened? When did our sleep, just like our health and our families start taking a back seat to all the other things we just absolutely have to do?

Lets start off with a little bit about sleep itself.

Sleep is such a vital thing to the human being. Science has shown us what we already know. The less you get of it, the sooner you die, the sadder you are, you get less done.

• 35% of Americans say they never nap, as they are too busy.

• A lack of sleep has been linked to heart disease.

• A lack of sleep sleep has been linked to lower productivity.

• Sleep deprivation has been shown to reduce sexual desire, increase chances of obesity and weaken the immune system.
• 16% of Americans get 5 or fewer hours of sleep per night.
  
• One particular brand of sleep aid managed 1.5 BILLION in sales for 2008.
  

This list could go on and on and on, but it wont. How on earth did Americans get to have such rampant issues with sleep even though our own government claims that we are 2nd on earth for how well we sleep. How is it that independent surveys tell us that Americans have major problems with sleep, while the official sources tell us we're fine?

I think a better question is when did everything we do become more important than sleep?

We must give up two hours of sleep, even after countless studies have shown that this is a practice that is detrimental to our health, because if we don't we wont be able to buy things we didn't realize we wanted. Our cable might end up dropping below the 300 channel mark, our ringtone collection might stop climbing by the dozens, and god forbid, we might lose weight. That can't be the crux of it though.

Even just 20 years ago if a man or woman was working a job that was taking its toll on the persons health, family or social life the job was going to go, not the health,friends and family. year after year our bosses asked us to stay an extra five minutes, ten the next year. We worked an extra day here and there. We saw the neighbors work 2 overtime shifts and give in to the idea that as a good red blooded American, they weren't all that good until they sacrificed the fruits of their extra labor to buy that 70" flat screen T.V. Envious we ran out and did the same, ignoring the lonesome stares of our wives and children, the aches and pains of our bodies. A year later our bosses asked us to stay an hour and five minutes, and we did. Two weeks later we volunteer for more overtime and less sleep, because we filled our houses with things we couldn't afford.

You would think that being rational, sane beings we would have picked up on the pattern and stopped leaping deeper and deeper into debt. You would think that we would have noticed the toll it was taking on us and our families, while we spent more and more to make someone other than ourselves and our families richer and richer. I somehow doubt that sane, rational or thinking came into the equation at any given point in time.

So now we work more. So now we sleep less. We lose our families and get promoted. This is the slippery slope at its worst. It changes our valued and leaves us with no one to blame, all semblance of the road we walked to get here obscured in the fog of too little sleep and too much yearning for things we don't need. Employers and marketers aren't taking advantage of us on their own, we are willing participants in our own rape.

I do to some extent blame this on the growing American 'value' that profit comes before anything else. A value that is rapidly replacing the previously held values of sacrifice for family, country, neighbors and community. Plasma televisions, smart phones and take out have become more precious to Americans than their families.

Yes there is an arguable propagandist element at work, being driven both by elected officials and corporate entities. Ultimately however, it is John and Jane Doe, who choose to put hearth and home second to their account balances who are responsible. It is they, who when asked to lose sleep for the sake of profit, say yes.

Arguing that it is a matter of survival is ridiculous. There is not a single person in American who is going to die from cable or ringtone deprivation. In fact, spending less time at work to pay for those thing might save our families. Spending more time with our loved ones and less time with our jobs and T.V.s will undoubtedly make life a whole lot more flavorful. I guess I shouldn't say things like that though, it's un-American to suggest that money is less important than children.

I frequently make comments such as "The average American would set their own children on fire to double their salary, and not loose sleep over it."
The truth is we are already losing sleep and pouring the gas . We may not be lighting the match, but we're ignoring the smell of burnt flesh to stay late at the office. Not to worry though, if we're so tired that we overlook the stench, we can always cover it up with the sweet smell of a new car and an early grave.