The book that gave me permission to rest... and play!

I grew up in the Midwest, and I remember clearly being told when I was applying to colleges (by more than one person) that admissions committees like us cornfed midwestern kids, not because of our culturally-presumed wholesomeness, but specifically because of our work ethic. This was a myth I embraced wholeheartedly, because I did in fact have a very strong work ethic. I truly believed there was no such thing as a problem that couldn't be solved without as much hard work as was required.

Looking back, that idea was keeping me trapped in some unhealthy attitudes about myself. Ideas that I'm still untangling decades later. 

But it was easy to stay trapped in those bad ideas, because I've never been very naturally inclined to idleness. Even my daydreams inevitably turn into projects. So how do you rest when everything about your personality and your cultural conditioning is telling you never to slow down, let alone stop?

This book has some much-needed answers for those of you who--like me--struggle to answer that question.

Take rest seriously, but also take work seriously

This is the main premise of the book. Work when you're working, rest when you're resting. Be deliberate about how you spend your time, and don't let work blur into leisure or leisure blur into work, because that just leads to a constant background haze of anxiety. It leads to poor work because you're not fully invested, and it leads to poor rest because you're never really disconnecting from work.

This book makes the case for rest in service of productivity, but not the kind of cog-in-the-machine productivity we're used to hearing about. For those of us whose interests both within and outside of our careers tend towards the cerebral, the idea of instagrammable beach-time leisure might not always appeal. Or even when it does appeal, it quickly grows stale.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-leaning-on-table-3767411/

Rest is active / rest is a skill

I am not good at sitting still (mentally), and maybe you aren't either. But that doesn't mean you need to fill every waking minute with work or work-related thoughts in order to have meaning or stave off boredom. In fact, I'm guessing you're reading my blog because you have struggled with (or are currently experiencing) burnout caused by this need to stay in motion and our society's eagerness to channel that into work activities.

Rest emphasizes that the act of resting doesn't have to look like being a couch potato. In fact, it shouldn't look like that most of the time. Rest should look like getting outside and moving (exercising in whatever way makes you feel good, especially if it gets you in nature). Rest should look like reading a book or playing a game or making art, as long as it's not exactly what you do for work every day. The way this is described in the book is that rest is active and it's a skill. 

The importance of play

I've spent a good amount of time now in the "slow productivity" idea space. Podcasts, blogs, and books that focus on slowing down, on mindfulness, and on intentionality. Building Balance definitely falls into that category, since I'm not just giving you tips to be an efficient machine at work, but how to use your time more wisely so that you can find the time and space to pursue things that restore you and bring you deep fulfillment. 

Something I've heard with increasing frequency in this community is that work-life balance is a myth. That there's no such thing, and trying to achieve it just puts you in a brand new hamster wheel of your own devising. And I agree with that, to some degree, but I think that rejecting the idea of work-life balance misses the point.

Work is not separate from life. It's a part of it. But so is rest. So is play. The balance we try to achieve is not in work and life, but in the elements of life that give it meaning: work, play, and rest. And balance doesn't have to mean some rigid division of time: balance is dynamic.

Photo by Scott Webb: https://www.pexels.com/photo/boy-playing-with-fall-leaves-outdoors-36965/

For me, the newest idea in this book was the idea of deep play. That how we spend our leisure time can be active without being exhausting, and that the secret is in the way play allows us to explore some of the same things that make us passionate about work (and about life!) but in a way that frees us up to have fun, to restore our energy and enthusiasm, and to renew our passion.

If you want a deep dive into all these ideas, chock full of both research studies and anecdotes, Rest is a great resource.