Remember Sleeping Beauty, the princess who slept for years because of a magical curse? We always thought she was just lazy. But what if she wasn’t lazy at all? This twisty tale uncovers how exhaustion and overload can turn anyone into a tired princess.

Once upon a time, there was a princess who wasn’t cursed by a spinning wheel. No dark fairy came to put her into an endless sleep.

And yet… she found herself lying in bed all day, staring at her phone, scrolling through endless reels she didn’t even enjoy.

The people of the kingdom whispered among themselves.
“She’s become lazy.”
“She’s wasting her life away.”
“Look at the other princes and princesses. They’re achieving so much. Why can’t she?”

The princess heard their whispers, and worse, she heard them inside her own head too. Every morning she promised herself: “Today will be different. Today I’ll study, meet my friends, fix my hair like I used to.” But when the moment came, her body felt too heavy to move. Even her thoughts seemed stuck in a fog.

Her favorite movie no longer made her laugh. Her best friends’ texts, once the highlight of her day, felt like work she couldn’t handle. Even brushing her hair, which she had always taken pride in, felt like too much effort.

And the cruelest part of the spell? It wasn’t just the exhaustion, it was the guilt.

When she rested, a voice whispered: “You’re lazy. You’re failing. Everyone else is doing fine, why can’t you?”
When she scrolled, another sneered: “Even strangers on the internet are more productive than you.”

The kingdom thought she was simply sleeping. But the truth was far from it. She wasn’t asleep. She was burnt out.

One evening, tired of the guilt, the princess did something unusual. She didn’t wait for a prince or anyone else to rescue her. Instead, she picked up a journal. She began writing everything she had been feeling. The emptiness, the fatigue, the way even saying yes to a walk felt impossible.

She admitted that she wasn’t just avoiding homework or chores. She was avoiding everything, her friends, her favorite hobbies, even herself.

And as her pen scratched the pages, a realization struck her. This wasn’t laziness. This was something different. Something deeper.

She remembered a line she had once read:

• Laziness = not wanting to do something.
• Burnout = wanting to do it, but feeling like you just can’t.

Suddenly, it all made sense. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t careless. She was exhausted.

Her mind had been running a marathon every day, full of worries about her marks, her future, her image in the kingdom, her comparisons with others. Even her “breaks” weren’t really breaks, just endless scrolling that left her feeling more drained.

She realized she wasn’t cursed by a fairy. She was trapped by her own constant pressure, her own overthinking. And that kind of spell doesn’t break with a kiss.

So, no, Sleeping Beauty didn’t need a prince to wake her up.
She needed rest. She needed to take tiny steps, like breaking down a giant mountain into small pebbles. She needed real breaks. Cycling in the fresh air, playing with her dog, annoying her brother, or reading a book for fun. She needed kindness towards herself when she couldn’t keep up.

And slowly, day by day, the spell began to lift.

She wasn’t magically fixed. Some days she still lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if she was falling behind. But now she didn’t drown in guilt for it. She allowed herself to pause. She reminded herself that healing wasn’t the same as failing.

And maybe that’s the real moral of the story:
Sleeping Beauty wasn’t lazy. She was burnt out.

And what she needed wasn’t a prince, but patience, rest, and the courage to ask for help.

The End

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