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Dear Insiders,
Last Friday, I felt like a bad parent.
I'd been sick for two days with a fever, sore throat and almost no voice. My husband was exhausted too. He had been sending our daughter to school, picking her up, getting meals for everyone and squeezing in work whenever he could.
By bedtime, neither of us had much left in the tank.
Our usual routine of shower, storytime and winding down simply didn't happen. Our daughter wasn't interested in sleeping and, if I'm honest, we didn't have the energy for a battle.
By 11pm, the guilt started creeping in.
I could almost hear all the parenting advice we've received over the years. The experts. The articles. The well-meaning reminders about routines and consistency.
I remember thinking: We're bad parents.
But later, after she finally fell asleep, I started questioning that thought.
Was it really bad parenting?
Or was it two exhausted parents making the best decision they could with the energy they had available?
The next day, the disaster I had imagined never arrived. She didn't suddenly stop sleeping. Her routine didn't fall apart. We simply resumed normal life.
And it reminded me of something many of us forget:
Sometimes sustainability means lowering the standard.
Not forever.
Not because we don't care.
But because we're human.
For those of us juggling careers, caregiving, parenting and everything in between, the pressure to do everything well can become exhausting. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do isn't pushing harder. It's accepting that "good enough" is good enough for today.
If you've ever found yourself running on empty while trying to hold everything together, you may also find these helpful:
Because sometimes the issue isn't a lack of discipline.
It's that we're trying to sustain a pace that was never sustainable in the first place.
Bad news is good business. We never bought in.
Every morning, financial news follows the same script. Headlines panic, coverage catastrophises, and somewhere inside the noise is the story that actually matters — the one that tells you where the opportunity sits, not just where the fear is pointing.
Most sources have stopped looking. The alarm is easier to sell.
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“Sustainability isn’t performing at your best every day. It’s recognising when good enough is enough.”
Until next time,
Serving weighty thoughts with a side of sass.