Here in America, land of the free and home of the brave, we believe in dreams. Often the American dream, specifically. We're all raised to know what that entails. You work hard and you pull yourself up by the strings holding your boots together, and you win your little league baseball games because the baseball games are an analogy for your whole damn life. But you also get excellent grades in school and work part-time on the side to save up for college, because that's an actual representation of how life works. Anyway, you definitely succeed, though, because this is an analogy for the American Dream. At the end of all your hard work, you have something like this.

Wow, that's really beautiful, you know? That's really top notch. Too bad this is the only view of your house that you ever really get, because when you're not sleeping in it you're rushing out of it, on your way to work to pay off the mortgage and support yourself or your family. Less often than people tell you to follow your dreams, do they tell you that, to have a dream, you have to keep working hard for forever. Especially in a consumer-driven economy, a product-based economy, one's output over a lifetime has to be enormous. And so must the consequences be. Observe.

We, like a home constructed of wood and pink, insulating fluff, are liable to get burned out. Wrecked. Gutted from the inside out until we're crumbly and fragile, our infrastructure no longer able to support the weight of our responsibilities.

Just think. It's a huge mental--and sometimes physical--strain to keep yourself going day after day and not have much reprieve. Everybody wants something from you, including yourself; when you try to cut yourself some slack, you just end up feeling worse.

The pressures build. The stress builds. You can't even get sick without feeling guilty about it; then you show up anyway, or keep working anyway, because you can't afford not to. You don't even want to work at that point, but something inside compels you to action.

You think back to that metaphorical youth.

Did your little league baseball team give up just because Jimmy was home with the pox? No! You fought and kicked and clawed your way to victory. Maybe if Jimmy had shown some initiative and hit the field despite his maladies, you all could have had a much easier time succeeding, like you knew you eventually must, against all odds. What good is The American Dream if you don't work towards its completion, overwhelmingly tossing all your possible efforts into success?

But that's absurd. It's an unsustainable lifestyle built around goals without really taking into account what it takes to reach them. In this case, yes--perseverance and dedication and resilience are necessary. A sort of stubbornness in trudging along through your difficulties. But, also required is the ability to pace yourself, to understand when it won't benefit you to take on another project, cover another shift, skip one more meal or night's sleep.

It sometimes feels like the end of the world to say, "I can't do this right now." And, all right--certain obligations call for taking certain unpleasant measures. It's unavoidable.

For the most part, though, the world will still be there--whole and unrelenting and merciful--when you step back in and start swinging.