# Insecurity, Fatigue, Attention.

By [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2) · 2025-06-27

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The base human program has a “fight or flight” reaction.

We’re wired to feel fear.

Is it a rustling of the grass or a tiger?

Fears, whether of wild animals, loss of job, insufficient resources, or catastrophic futures, are intensified, exacerbated, and magnified by fatigue.

Well, at least for me, they are.

Because when I’m fatigued, the muscle that is most weakened is my attention muscle.

Where and how I choose to put my attention determines the quality of my decisions.

It determines the degree of serenity that comes from saying, “there aren’t that many tigers in the bathroom of the turnpike.”

But when I’m working on less sleep?

Then I can literally observe myself making questionable decisions.

But I have no energy to stop them because my attention isn’t on the thoughtful choice. It’s on the immature, unthoughtful choice.

And yet, I feel, the tension between the two. I know my future self will be like “dude, why did you make that decision?”

And I know that I will regret the choice I made.

But I make it anyway.

And it’s probably because I didn’t get enough sleep.

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*Originally published on [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/insecurity-fatigue-attention)*