The Gift of Nothing: Rest ethic is work ethic.
Wishing you "nothing" this holiday season...
Sometimes what you need to do is nothing.
If you’re anything like me your default mode tends to be so much to do and so little time. It’s as if I’m on a tiny paddleboat gazing into a sea of 50 foot waves of stuff to do.
Or – another boating analogy – I’m in a ship being shot at with little cannonballs of emails, tasks, and commitments. Every little hole is the boat is letting in water and I’m frantically running from hole to hole to plug them up at a pace that is essentially just enough to keep the boat afloat. But there’s still a couple feet of standing water to remind me that I’m just not quite out of it yet — but someday I’ll get a handle on things and be in the clear.
And then someday never comes!
Last week, in the face of rebuilding our business infrastructure and our entire marketing system collapsing on a Tuesday afternoon. I decided to take Thursday through Sunday off for Thanksgiving (I mean really off).
I did the usual mid-to-late-twenties Thanksgiving Eve debauchery with old hometown friends then played football Thursday morning, ate ribs (much better than turkey), and watched football: the optimal Thanksgiving day arc.
Over the few days I slept lots and got outside for long walks.
And as I come back to my flow of the workweek there’s somewhat of a strange feeling. I actually feel pulled towards work. I’m sort of looking forward to starting the week. I feel a sense of clarity and motivation.
I’m starting to think a good rest ethic is just as important as a good work ethic.
In fact, maybe they’re the same thing. If you look at how athletes train, you will find the rest is the training. It’s not one or the other. With strength training for instance, you apply stress to the muscle then the growth response occurs over the next 1 to 3 rest days. It’s like sleep and being awake: the sleep is the thing that makes being awake possible and being awake is the thing that makes the sleep possible.
Maybe the working mind isn’t so different from the body (supporting reference). Maybe the discipline of rest is just as important as the discipline of work. Like the sleeping and training analogies, rest is what makes work possible and work is what makes rest possible.
So I invite you into an experiment this holiday season (or whenever you happen to read this)…
Can you do the thing that may be the hardest thing to do?
Nothing.Yes, nothing. Things that are not “productive” nor “billable hours” nor “getting things done”. You can actually do nothing in many delicious ways…
You can do nothing with friends.
You can do nothing with your partner / family.
You can do nothing while you have fun.
You can do nothing while you exercise.
You can do nothing without the help of technology.
You can do nothing in a house, with a mouse, in a box or with a fox. Here or there you can do nothing anywhere.
In this case, doing nothing is really doing all the things that matter most that often let get crowded out by our many to dos.
This experiment is even more important if you’re saying to yourself: “easy for you to say Jackson you don’t even have a real job!” (valid). “I have so much to do. I can’t even get my head around it. In a few weeks once I have a handle on things then I can try doing nothing.”
Well you’re the perfect candidate because…
Having so much to do you can’t get your head around it means you need to cultivate clarity, which comes from the stillness of doing nothing. And you need priorities which come from doing nothing and seeing what the consequences are (that way you see what actions are most consequential and thus highest priority).
That few weeks from now when you have a handle will probably never come. Haven’t you said that before and what happened? The problem is that You of 3-weeks-from-now will (in 3 weeks) be You of today. If you don’t change You of today nothing will change. It’s like when you go on a vacation and still feel stressed: your problems don’t magically go away. Because wherever you go there you are. And whenever you are, there you go. Your tendencies will accompany you through space and time – so change your tendencies.
This season I challenge you to create spaciousness for nothing: to receive the gift of nothing. And give yourself permission to be. Because rest ethic and work ethic are the same thing: each makes the other possible.
And just see what happens…
You may, like I did, find time friends, family, outdoors, reading, and good sleeps. In your nothing and resting you might find that you have time for all the things that actually make life worth living.
Your happiness nerd,
Jackson K