Oct 21, 2026 · 47 min · 14 segments
Stacey Luces reflects on feeling mentally exhausted after ordinary days and, as she approaches 50, explores why midlife mental stamina matters beyond simply handling pressure. She distinguishes…
Stacey LucesHost
When was the last time that you finished what you considered a perfectly ordinary day, right? Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but mentally you were exhausted by the end of it.
And so it's not like, oh, I ran a triathlon or negotiated a billion dollar deal or there was like a national emergency.
Maybe at 7 o'clock, somebody asked you, like, a reasonable question, like, what do you want for dinner? What are we having for dinner? And you...
And I, you know, that dinner question, I'll stick with it, right? It's not like that was a complicated question, right? You've made approximately 9,000 dinners in your lifetime.
Another part to that is the reverse, right? Maybe you actually have a free evening.
So no meetings, maybe no kids acting weird or having activities and you've kind of been looking forward to it.
It's just sitting on the couch, maybe scrolling through your phone, as a lot of us do.
Maybe you thought about reading a book, but then as soon as you opened it, you got sleepy.
And I think that what I'm saying in these two examples is there is a time in our lives when the mental energy to do anything meaningful is not there.
And what the hell is that about, right? Because a lot of us are smart, capable, productive ass people.
When was the last time that you finished what you considered a perfectly ordinary day, right? Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but mentally you were exhausted by the end of it.
And so it's not like, oh, I ran a triathlon or negotiated a billion dollar deal or there was like a national emergency.
Maybe at 7 o'clock, somebody asked you, like, a reasonable question, like, what do you want for dinner? What are we having for dinner? And you...
And I, you know, that dinner question, I'll stick with it, right? It's not like that was a complicated question, right? You've made approximately 9,000 dinners in your lifetime.
Another part to that is the reverse, right? Maybe you actually have a free evening.
So no meetings, maybe no kids acting weird or having activities and you've kind of been looking forward to it.
It's just sitting on the couch, maybe scrolling through your phone, as a lot of us do.
Maybe you thought about reading a book, but then as soon as you opened it, you got sleepy.
And I think that what I'm saying in these two examples is there is a time in our lives when the mental energy to do anything meaningful is not there.
And what the hell is that about, right? Because a lot of us are smart, capable, productive ass people.
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