On Tired Hearts

My dear friend,

I want to begin tonight with a memory. Just after sunrise, in a remote village in South Sudan, the women walked to the water point with empty jerrycans resting against their hips. The air was cool, the ground still damp, and the morning carried a kind of stillness that felt almost protective.

I do not know how your day was. Maybe it was loud and full of people. Maybe it was slow and heavy. Maybe you spent most of it caring for others, replying to messages, joining meetings, and trying to make something work with very few resources. Maybe you gave your best and still ended the day feeling that it was not enough.

If that is you, then this letter is for you.

I want to speak to the tired part of you. The part that still hopes. The part that keeps showing up even when the heart wants to lie down.

Not the lazy part, not the distracted part, not the part that needs more discipline. I want to speak to the part that is tired because it has been faithful. The part that gets up again and again. The part that listens when everyone else is talking. The part that stays behind to close the room. The part that continues to believe in people even when people disappoint.

People speak often about courage. Fewer speak about endurance. Yet most of the good things in life are not built by sudden courage. They are carried by quiet endurance. The teacher who keeps showing up. The officer who keeps returning to the field. The parent who keeps calling. The manager who keeps protecting the team. The leader who keeps telling the truth even when it is not popular. That kind of faithfulness is tiring. It stretches the heart and the mind.

I remember the women in a remote village in South Sudan. Just after sunrise, they walked to the water point with empty jerrycans resting against their hips. The air was cool, the ground still damp, and the morning carried a kind of stillness that felt almost protective. When I took my early walk around the displaced community camp, I often met them. Some mornings I carried my own jerrycan from the compound and joined them. We waited our turn at the hand pump, filled our cans, and carried the weight back through sand and puddles. Step by step. Breath by breath.

Their arms showed one kind of strength. Their eyes showed another.

Later in the day I would see some of the same women in the women’s friendly space we supported as an organization. It was a small room, but it felt warm. A radio played softly. Fabric lay folded on the floor. They sat close, talking in low voices, stitching bright patterns onto cloth. The door kept opening and closing, women stepping in and out, yet the room always felt calm.

One afternoon I asked about their days. A woman smiled and said, This is where we rest. We come here to breathe. Outside there were floods, long walks, heavy cans, and too little of almost everything. Inside, for a short time, there was color and softness. They made cloths to brighten their shelters, gifts for their children, small blankets to keep babies warm. Their hands moved slowly. The rhythm of sewing turned the noise of the world into stillness.

Even when life was heavy, they found a way to rest, to create, and to keep something human alive.

I have seen this tiredness in so many places. In Iraq, in Syria, in Sudan, in Bangladesh, in Afghanistan. In offices in Denmark. In calls with colleagues in the United States. In conversations with leaders in the Gulf and the United Kingdom. In small nonprofit organizations run from living rooms, and in large institutions where decisions take months. In social enterprises struggling to survive and in volunteer teams holding entire communities together on nothing but goodwill.

It is the same tiredness. The face changes. The language changes. The country changes. But the look in the eyes is the same. It is the look of someone who has been carrying more than anyone knows.

Let me tell you something I learned too late. Being tired does not mean you have failed. Being tired often means you cared.

There is a tiredness that is unhealthy, the kind that comes from people pleasing, from never saying no, from trying to fix what is not yours to fix. That tiredness needs a boundary. That tiredness needs rest.

But there is another kind. The good tiredness. The tiredness that comes from giving yourself to something that matters. From showing up when it is easier not to. From staying gentle in places that make gentleness difficult. That tiredness deserves to be honoured.

We do not honour tiredness enough in the international aid and development sector. We praise outputs, we praise presence, we praise the ones who always show up, but we rarely say thank you for paying the emotional bill. Yet someone always pays it. Someone absorbs the fear of the team, the confusion of donors, the expectations of the community, the pressure from the capital. Someone receives all of that and turns it into calm. That is work. Real work.

And we do not acknowledge it enough in social enterprises or companies either. The emotional labor is heavy everywhere.

I say we because I have led and managed teams across these worlds. In one way or another, I have been responsible for contributing to this culture too. I tried to change it, but the system has a way of placing the burden back on the individual.

So, my friend, if you feel that kind of tired, I want you to hear this. You are not weak. You are human. Tiredness is not the enemy of purpose. Rest is not betrayal. Rest is stewardship.

If you want to keep serving, you must keep yourself alive. I have seen too many good people disappear not because they lacked talent, but because they did not learn how to refill. They kept giving from an empty place. They confused sacrifice with depletion. They confused availability with value.

Before I continue, let me tell you about someone who carried this kind of tiredness with honesty and courage. Someone who showed me what it looks like to keep going without losing your humanity.

Let me tell you about K. I met her in Nigeria, during one of those relentless stretches of crisis when every day felt borrowed from tomorrow. The air was thick with humidity and tension, and everyone spoke a little quieter than usual, as if saving energy for the next emergency that would surely arrive.

K was one of the few people whose presence made a room feel calmer the moment she walked in. She had a mind that caught details quickly and a heart that refused to turn away from people. She listened with her whole face. She worked with a kind of quiet precision. She carried responsibility the way some people carry heavy bags, steady and without complaint.

We were both exhausted. It was the third emergency in a row. We were underfunded, understaffed, and over-expected. K cared deeply for her team, often more than she cared for herself.

One night, as rain hit the roof and the generator hummed in the background, she looked at me with tired eyes and said quietly, I do not know if I can keep doing this for ten years. It was not a dramatic confession. It was a truth released after being held too long.

I told her, “You do not have to do it for ten years today. You only have to do it for today. Tomorrow has its own light.” I was speaking to her, but I was also speaking to the part of myself that needed to hear it.

A year later, I saw K again, this time outside Nigeria. We met in a small café with warm lighting and slow music. She looked softer, rested in a way I had not seen in years. She had left the field for a calmer job, one that allowed her to breathe again. And yet, as we talked, she kept returning to Nigeria. She missed the people. She missed the rhythm. She missed the meetings that always found laughter in the middle of chaos. She missed being part of something that mattered.

At one point she looked at me and said, “You are a resilient person, Ali. I do not know how you keep going.” I smiled and told her, “Resilience is not strength without pain. It is the decision to stay kind while the world keeps testing you.”

She nodded, and we sat in silence for a long moment. We both knew that resilience is not something we inherit. It is something we rebuild after every storm.

K reminded me that leaving does not mean giving up. Sometimes leaving is the only way to stay whole. The work is not only in the field or in the office. The work is also in the quiet rebuilding of the self. Some people think rest is a pause from purpose. They forget that rest is part of the purpose.

Sometimes tiredness is a signal, not to quit the mission, but to change the method. Maybe the way you are doing the work is too lonely. Maybe the structure around you is not healthy. Maybe you have been trying to carry what should have been shared. Maybe you have been doing everything yourself because others did not show up when they should have.

If that is true for you, then the answer is not to harden your heart. The answer is to redesign the way you work. Redesign the way you think. Redesign the way you carry your responsibilities. Let others carry part of it. Teach where you can. Delegate where you are allowed. Slow the pace where life permits. Say no to what is not aligned. Your value does not increase when your calendar is full. Your value is already there.

I want you to stay in this work, in whatever form you do it. The world needs people like you. Not the loud ones who make speeches and forget. The world needs the ones who visit, who listen, who write, who hold the line quietly. The ones who carry compassion even when they are tired. We cannot afford to lose people like you to burnout.

So if tonight you feel tired, let this letter be your permission to rest. Sit. Breathe. Remind yourself that you did enough for today. The world will not be saved in one evening. Suffering will not end because you sacrificed ten more minutes of sleep. But your heart will stay softer if you allow it to breathe.

You are allowed to be human in this work. You are allowed to be kind to yourself. You are allowed to heal while you help. You are allowed to take the long road.

My friend, in the end it is not the most productive who stay. It is the most rooted. The ones who know why they do what they do. The ones who can return to that why whenever the work becomes blurry.

Sometimes it helps me to remember that I am a ship, and that I am working among ships. A ship is not meant to stay in calm waters forever. It is built for movement, for storms, for long distances. It bends with the waves, but it does not break. It learns to navigate by small adjustments, by reading the wind, by trusting its own structure.

And even in the roughest seas, a ship does not forget its purpose. It knows where it is going, even when the sky is dark. It knows that stillness will return. It knows that direction matters more than speed.

That image helps me when the work becomes heavy. It reminds me that I can face the waves without becoming the storm. And it reminds me that you can too.

As I write this, the candle has bent slightly, but the flame is still straight. That is what I wish for you. You can bend. You can lean. You can grow slower in some seasons. You can take time to mend what life has bruised. Just keep the flame straight.

Until tomorrow, keep your heart warm.

With care,

Ali Al Mokdad