A Day That Felt Wasted, A Heart That Was Not

When a Day Collapses, It Reveals What You Have Been Carrying All Along

Some days do not explode. They quietly fold in on themselves.

There was no big fight today. No obvious disaster. No crisis from the outside. Yet I ended the day calling it wasted, feeling depressed, and wondering what was wrong with me. That is the strange thing about days like this. They look normal from the outside, but inside they feel like a slow collapse.

I usually live with structure. Clear purpose. High discipline. A full Life Wheel. But today exposed something my schedule often hides. You can run on strength for a long time, until your system quietly hits its limit. Then one small moment becomes the last drop that tips the whole glass.

This was one of those days.

Not a failure of character. Not a failure of faith. It was a day when my humanity finally asked to be seen.

The Story, The Weight, And The One Domino That Shook Everything

The heaviness did not start today. It was already building last night.

At the prom night, I stood in a hall full of students I am supposed to shepherd as principal. Yet I felt like a guest in my own school. I do not teach them. I do not journey with them daily. I felt obligated to attend, but not truly connected. The disconnection followed me home like an echo.

By the time I woke up, the weight was already sitting in my chest.

I am usually disciplined with mornings. Today I could barely reply to messages. Even a simple text felt expensive. Still, a small part of me tried to reach for something good. I brought my Bible to breakfast. All my children were with me. My wife sat across from me. In my mind, I saw a simple picture. We would have devotion together. We would anchor the day.

So I voiced it out.

Her reply was short. “I do not want to do devotion with you.” She stood up and walked away.

From the outside, it might look like a small scene. Simple preference. Different mood. But inside, it was the pin that burst a very full balloon. It poked straight into a part of me that already felt rejected, misunderstood, and tired of trying.

The devotion I wanted to lead turned into a sermon disguised as an attack. My words became sharp. I layered truth with sarcasm. I could hear myself talking, and at the same time, I could feel another part of me saying, “This is not who you want to be.” But the brakes were gone.

If I zoom out and look at my life as a whole, most domains are not just okay. They are above average.

Purpose and ministry: I know why I am here, and I love it.

Health and fitness: I am not perfect, but I am in a good place.

Knowledge and wisdom: I have invested years into learning and reflection.

Business, career, finance, community, contribution: by most standards, they are solid.

But there is one domain that has the power to shake all the others.

Love and romance.

Psychologists talk about how one painful area, especially marriage or core relationships, can outweigh multiple healthy areas. It is not logical, but it is very human. It is like having nine subjects with grade A and one subject with a failing mark, and yet all you can see is the fail.

That is what today felt like.

Like my whole Life Wheel was hanging on one thin spoke.

In the middle of this, I read the story of Annaliese, the young Australian woman who chose Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD). She had a rare neurological condition. Her own immune system attacked the nerves that controlled her organs. She spent most of her teenage years and twenties in hospitals. She could not eat normally, lived on intravenous feeding, survived sepsis twenty five times, and feared the day her body would no longer absorb any form of nutrition.

She missed prom nights, graduations, birthdays. She watched her friends go on with life, fall in love, get married, have children, while she stayed in the same loop of pain, vomiting, and hospital beds. When her body and mind crossed their limit, she chose VAD. She said it was not giving up, she had just had enough.

Normally, my theology is clear about life and death. Today, I felt something else first. Empathy. A kind of empathy that jumped over my usual lines. Not agreement, but understanding. The human part of me saw a human who had suffered more than most of us can imagine. And my heart whispered, “I can see why.” That whisper scared me a little. It also told me how empty my tank really was.

Then there was the family situation. A divorce in the extended family. A new relationship posted openly online. I do not support divorce lightly, especially when children are involved, but I also see people as more than their worst chapter. Out of goodwill, I clicked like on a post. A small action, one second long.

The impact was not small.

To some in my family, my click became a betrayal. In their eyes, I had taken a side. I had abandoned them. They did not see a small gesture of empathy. They saw disloyalty. Just like that, a simple action carried a meaning it was never meant to carry. Once again, a good intention turned into relational pain.

One like for one person.

Ten misunderstandings from another.

And I was the bridge that both sides felt did not belong to them.

By afternoon, my system stopped. I stayed home. I did not want to talk. I did not want to reply. I just wanted the day to end.

Eventually, I went cycling, not to chase fitness, but just to stay alive inside the silence.

What The Drowning Was Really Saying About My Soul

From the outside, this could look like overreaction. A breakfast rejection. A news article. A social media misunderstanding. Add tiredness. Result: meltdown.

But there is something deeper beneath it.

First, this was not a character collapse. It was a capacity limit.

The brain has a survival mode. When it is overwhelmed, it lowers your ability to decide, respond, and regulate emotions. It is not sabotage. It is protection. The “I cannot even reply a text” feeling is not laziness. It is the nervous system pulling the handbrake.

Second, the weight of one domain explains the size of the reaction. Marriage and intimate relationships carry more emotional load than work. Studies have shown that conflict in this area increases stress hormones faster than deadlines or money worries. It is the place where identity, safety, and belonging sit. So when one small thing goes wrong there, it can feel like the whole world is shaking.

Third, empathy is not the enemy of conviction. It is often a sign that you still have a heart. On a normal day, I might respond to the Australian story with pure principle first. Today, compassion arrived ahead of doctrine. That does not mean my beliefs disappeared. It means my tired heart recognised another tired heart. Sometimes, when you are drowning yourself, you can see other drowning people more clearly.

Fourth, this was not really about one day. It was about many unprocessed days. I had not paused to unload mentally. Each day carried little unresolved pieces, until they all sat in the same room and demanded attention.

There is also a quieter insight.

I felt like one area cancelled out everything else. Like the fail in love and romance erased the As in all other subjects of my life. But if I am honest, the reason that single area has so much power to hurt is because I care deeply. If I was numb, if nothing mattered, there would be no pain. Pain itself is proof that love is still present.

Pain is not a verdict. It is a signal.

Even my reaction toward myself today, calling it a wasted day, came from the same place that created my usual discipline. Deep down I believe days must count. That belief helps me show up again and again for my purpose. The flip side is that rest can look like failure. Yet neuroscience and experience both agree. Bodies and minds need these “unproductive” days to prevent bigger breakdowns.

So what was this day saying, beneath the noise?

It was not saying, “You are done.”

It was saying, “You are tired.”

It was not saying, “You are a bad leader.”

It was saying, “The leader also needs somewhere safe to be human.”

And there is a quiet spiritual layer too.

I thought about the thieves on the cross next to Jesus. One life full of wrong choices, given a promise at the final scene. Another life full of effort and discipline, shaken by a hard season. It is so easy to slip into a performance theology. If I do well in every area and fail one big test, do I lose everything?

But grace does not weigh life like an exam board. God does not mark daily performance sheets the way we do. The judgement I placed on myself today did not come from heaven. It came from my own perfectionism.

The heaviness, strangely, exposed where I still rely on my own report card more than on grace.

How To Move Forward Without Pretending The Day Was Fine

I cannot end this day by pretending it was minor. It was not minor to me.

I also cannot end it by forcing myself to fix everything in one night. That would only feed the same perfectionism that broke me in the first place.

So I will take a different kind of step. A quiet one.

First, I name it honestly.

This was a heavy day. I felt depressed. I felt rejected. I felt misunderstood. I felt like all my achievements were cancelled by one painful domain.

Second, I allow the day to pass without tying my identity to it.

I am not “a depressed person.” I am a person who had a depressing day.

I am not “a failed husband.” I am a husband walking through a painful chapter.

I am not “a weak leader.” I am a leader who reached a limit and is still here, reflecting through the fog.

Third, I will anchor tomorrow in something very small and realistic. Not a grand plan. Not a huge resolution. Just one or two simple commitments that even a tired version of me can keep. Maybe reply to one or two important messages. Maybe take one honest step with my wife, not to solve everything, but to lower the temperature. Maybe talk to someone safe about how I am really doing.

Fourth, I will remember that awareness is already a kind of breath.

You only realise you are drowning when your head becomes aware of the water. That awareness is painful, but it is also the first move upward.

I do not need a massive breakthrough tonight.

I just need enough air to face tomorrow.

The Reserve That Redefines It All

The opposite of drowning is not strength. It is breath.

And the opposite of weakness is not power. It is presence.

Today felt like a wasted day. But in a strange way, it did something important. It refused to let me hide behind productivity, purpose, and discipline. It dragged my heart out into the open and forced me to admit that I am not only a leader. I am also a man who gets tired, who longs for connection, who misreads and is misread, who sometimes just has enough.

Maybe the quiet hope is this:

A single heavy day does not erase a lifetime of obedience.

A single aching domain does not cancel nine faithful ones.

A single moment of drowning does not mean you have sunk.

Sometimes, the most honest leadership is simply this.

To admit that you are underwater, to pause the performance, and to trust that even here, in the deep, God has not let go of you.

The story did not end today.

It only revealed that even a heart that feels wasted still wants to keep going.