Good morning, friends! I hope the weekend is treating
you well!
I'm getting down to the last few boxes of unpacking, hanging pictures, and finally making the new place feel like home. It's always a lot of work but it's hard to rest and focus on other tasks until it's done. Next week I'll have some photos for you!
The kitty is settling in nicely and is a true delight. It's good to have a furry companion again after losing two in a year to old age.
I wanted to talk to you today about the importance of rest. Not just in a Sabbath kind of way but in a part-of-life-you-should-not-feel-bad-about kind of way.
Now, I'm certainly not suggesting we become lazy and indulge in the new TikTok trend disturbingly called "bed rotting," where you just spend days in bed mindlessly scrolling on social media.
But something I've noticed is that people, myself included, rarely say that they've spent time resting. If
you catch a person at rest, they say with mild to moderate embarrassment that they were "doing nothing" or "sitting on their rear ends."
I, for one, have decided to stop doing that. Bodies and brains are not meant to go for every single waking moment, being pushed to the limit, never given a break, and always under stress. It's terrible for your health, both physical and mental.
So, I am owning the act of rest for myself. I turn off all work systems earlier in the day and take two full days off, something I haven't done in decades. On those days, I don't read the news, I don't try and make everything educational, and I don't work myself to the bone catching up on cleaning. I take extra care of my plants beyond basic watering. I might organize some stuff because I truly enjoy doing it. I might cook an elaborate meal because, after so long without my own kitchen, it's a treat to do so. I go for walks, read books,
watch movies, and indulge in hobbies completely guilt-free. I spend time with people I care about, playing games or just plain old-fashioned hanging out. I generally do things that don't cost extra money because if I start making it a spending extravaganza, the guilt about doing it will be back.
I've worked seven days a week for more than a decade, with only odd days off interspersed here and there. But I'm starting to see that the sky won't fall if I take a step away and do nothing more urgent than try to figure out which bird that is singing outside my window. The tasks I need to do in my home seem far less like work if I do them in a more enjoyable fashion instead of grimly pushing through them as fast as possible.
There may come a day when this type of rest is no longer possible. With the banking crisis in the US, political corruption everywhere, and the constant threat of violence if you venture into the city,
that day could be coming sooner than many people think.
But for now, I can proudly say that I spent this entire weekend resting, and it was glorious.
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