on not being able to rest
Of course rest is important. But I still really struggle to consistently do it.
Part of it is that I love activity. Sports are one of my favorite things in the world to do. Working out gives me a sense of accomplishment and helps me sleep. Lifting weights is measurable, objective, awesome, and important. Stillness, on the other hand, feels like wasting time. Like I’m fumbling a bag filled with the opportunity to be better.
I’m afraid that if I stop moving, I’ll get soft. I don’t mean just physically, though that’s a big part of it. But I also mean mentally. I associate rest with regression, with undoing the work I’ve done to become who I am. Somewhere along the way I've internalized the idea that slowing down means falling behind. How can I be a dog, a grinder, a beast, if I rest?
Another issue is rest just feels boring. It has no obvious, tangible benefit in the moment. There’s no hint of progress, no dopamine spike, no checkbox to check. I’m wired to always do something. Respond to a text, check social media or email, learn something new, solve a problem, make a plan, workout. Our world is built for distraction and doing. As a result, stillness now feels unnatural. It feels really uncomfortable. And I haven’t trained myself to sit in it without needing to fill it. I'm betting on meditation helping.
As I attempt to rest and do less, I'm starting to learn that the real breakthroughs (creative, emotional, physical) tend to come after rest. Rest is where the ideas click, the body repairs, and my mind lets go of whatever it was clinging to. It's almost like the mind and body untangles and rewires. Rest allows your body to delete tension.
And still, it's so freaking hard. I need to stop treating rest like a failure of my will. This requires more discipline than I currently have. Rest will not make me lazy. I should treat rest as the most important of the plan. Not a break from it. Hopefully this post will help me be more thoughtful about rest.