After all the happenings that occurred dealing with charity, I was feeling rather drained. After getting dressed up for work, I went and asked sloth if he could help at all. He slowly sat up on the couch with his towering stature and yawned. “Why not just... sleep?” he tiredly responded. “Well I’d love to but I still have to go to work, and I’m still a bit new on the job so I’d rather not make any bad moves like taking a day off.” “How is that… bad? Sleep is healthy.” “Sleep is healthy, yes, but work is a bit more necessary so I can pay for all of my other needs.” “Well just be sure not to *yawn* overwork yourself.”

As I made my way to work I noticed that sloth came to drowsily stumble beside me there. It was quite a sight to witness his gargantuan size, he was about 8 feet tall and had to phase or crouch through all the doorways in the apartment. Through the sliding doors I greeted Tom, rode up the elevator, and arrived at my cubicle, beginning my work day. Albeit today sloth sat on the edge of my cubicle desk and seemed to continuously stare at me. After about half an hour I quietly asked “Hey, is something the matter?” “It seems like you’re too tired to work at the best you can, you should rest more.” “Yeah, I’ve just been going through a lot dealing with Charity and my dad. I should be able to get back into a proper sleep schedule soon.”

After about another hour dealing with sloth’s stares, Chase popped by and we talked about how our work was going. “Yeah I’ve just been dealing with customers non-stop, some of them complained that I was talking too fast and asked for me to slow down, man I really need to work on that haha.” I can empathize with his clients, he speaks a mile a minute and can’t really help it. “Ah well on my end I’ve mostly been stuck with older clients, it’s rather rough trying to get them to trust my advice. I got this one middle-aged client though that I had a nice talk with, he wanted to get his software repairs done quickly so he could watch his son play in a soccer match. Turns out he was the star of his old team and his son seems to be inheriting his talent.” “Yeah back in highschool I was a star of my tennis team, I could always reach my opponents shots but I would oftentimes miss when I hit it back.” Just then I caught sloth taking a glance at Chase and frowning, that wasn’t really a good sign. I then got a ring on my phone, Chase said his goodbyes and I helped out the client. Shortly afterwards I asked Sloth “Is something the matter with Chase? I doubt he doesn’t get enough sleep, he always comes to work so hyper.” “No, he can’t manage his energy properly... he puts it into everything except his thoughts... he’d be able to do a lot more otherwise.” “Wait, so are you saying he’d be some sort of super-genius if he could just focus more?” “No… but he’d be able to do a lot more… than he is now.” Somewhat shocked by the revelation I returned to my work as I got with my next client over email.

During lunch I saw Chase chatting with some of the other workers and I went up to chat while he was refilling his coffee. “Not hyper enough eh? Any plans after today? Maybe we can invite Shawn and Alex along so we can have ourselves a guys night out. Catch some fish, talk about work, go get something to eat, stuff like that.” “Ha, that sounds like a pretty good idea, but I think I’d rather save something like that for the weekend, it’s just monday man.” “Sorry, sorry, yeah it’d be on the weekend, but would you still be down for something like that?” “Sure, did you ask the other guys already?” “No I was going to ask them after work, probably Alex first since Shawn normally leaves early.” “Sounds good, let me know how the other guys respond. Well it looks like lunch is ending soon anyways, we better get back to work.” “Of course, just be sure to let your clients talk first.”

Not much happened during the rest of the work day, Brad came by to tell me that my customer reviews were above satisfactory, that if I kept it up I could see a raise sometime soon, and I talked to seven more clients before the workday ended. I got up from my cubicle and headed over to Alex, slumped over his desk looking like he was ready to fall asleep. “Hey Alex, gonna sleep here again or are you headed home.” “...Hm? Oh hey Joseph, I’ll be heading home later. After a short nap… is there something you want to talk about?” “Yeah, me and Chase were planning to head for a guy’s night out this weekend, are you up for it? I’m also going to be asking Shawn about it tomorrow.” “Nighttime?” “Yup.” “Sounds nice... what are the plans?” “Maybe some fishing, talk about work, get something to eat, maybe a movie, stuff like that.” “Sure, just let me know the time… I’ll be active after 8:00.” “Sounds good, I’ll let you know how Shawn responds.” After packing my stuff up I sent Chase a message that Alex was in for the night.

On my way back I was a bit curious about Alex and decided to ask Sloth about it. “Hey Sloth, what’s up with Alex? He always seems so tired.” “Oh... the tired guy you were talking to earlier? He has some insomnia, which often troubles his sleep. Other than that he does his best to get as much sleep as possible, even during the day.” “Oh.” As we continued back I couldn’t help but feel bad for both Chase and Alex, would it be considered intrusive if I try to help them through their problem? As I got home I thanked Gluttony for the meal and went to sleep. The next day I asked Shawn if he wanted to join and he reluctantly agreed. Over the next few days we all went over the plans for the weekend after work.

At the time of the weekend I got ready for the trip. We decided that we would start the night with a movie, head to a little bar for something to eat, and then head to the river to fish for the rest of the night and talk about how life’s been going. We all drove to meet up at the movies, it was an old war movie about getting behind enemy lines and getting the jump on some germans. We all got our kicks out of some of the more corny lines along with the incredible amount of explosions and jump cuts throughout the film. The bar we went to afterwards had a replay of a football game from the previous weekend. Arguing about some of the plays and calls was pretty funny and everyone but I got a little bit tipsy, even the shy Shawn was beginning to crack open a bit. During the twilight hours is when we all started to ramble about our lives during the fishing trip. It turned out that Shawn got his shy nature from his mother, and that while he was rather embarrassed about it, he never resented his upbringing and sees himself more so as being reserved. Chase was clinically diagnosed with ADHD and talked about how he was incredibly grateful to be accepted into a job that requires so much focus, and how he’s giving it all to prove his worth. Alex talks about his insomnia, how it interrupts his life and how it was really nice that we all stayed up for this trip. For me, I talked about how my dad finally awoke from his coma, everyone gave their congratulations and asked about what he was planning on doing. I told them he was planning on going back to the farm to make up for lost time with my late mom, which led to some condolences from the others.

About an hour into the fishing I saw that Sloth was eyeing us from below the water's surface. “While this looks nice and fun... are you sure you should be up this late? You’re still somewhat recovering... from the Charity incident.” I whispered back to him “Yeah, we’ve all planned for this and made sure we got some rest before coming out here, I’ll make up for my sleep tomorrow. Is there anything you can do to help out Chase or Alex?” “No… we are only to help you.” “Well is there any advice you can tell me so that I can help them?” “No… you still need to work on yourself more… before you can help others.” While it was upsetting and annoying to hear that, I guess it couldn’t really be helped and I just enjoyed the rest of the night with my coworkers. We caught and released a few fish, and we all headed back to our cars. The other guys had a bit more to drink so I called over Tiffany and Taylor and we helped drive them and their cars back. After we got back I felt it was a good time to talk with Sloth. “Hey Sloth, why were you even following me around today? You didn’t really do much to help me at all.” “I did… but I suppose it’s hard to tell… You need to focus more on yourself recently… To know about others... is one thing, but to know when to focus on yourself… is also important.” “So I just need to not spend energy on others and focus more on myself? So why did you let me go out with the guys tonight? My sleep schedule is probably much worse now.” “No… you made sure to sleep… you also needed to relax… mentally… Having fun is good for that. I think… you should sleep again now.” “Well while I agree with you on sleeping now, I don’t like how you want me to focus on my own wellbeing, if I don’t have compassion for others what good am I?” “You’d be… alive and well… to help another day. Until you yourself are well... it’s bad to spend energy you don’t have… on others.” “Well I guess that makes more sense, thanks for explaining. I better get to sleep then. Good night sloth.”