The Difficult Art of Resting
Rest Time by Monika Luniaka
I went to bed yesterday (technically earlier this morning) at 2:30am*. And I got to work around 8am. Needless to say, I was unable to do anything at all. I found myself logging into social media and Youtube, and flitting through them incessantly, even though I did not really want to.
I still had a pricing sheet that was due on Monday to do, and the prospect of trekking to LA later with my brother to visit a newly arrived Angelite, going to my college friend’s birthday party, crashing somewhere, attending Citizen’s LA on Sunday morning seemed absurd, impossible and hellish.
I realized I was browsing the web in order to not feel the wretched tiredness that was powerfully present. So I decided to take a nap in an unused office room. I eventually was able to mercifully drift off into a dozing state (and now I feel fine), but staying still long enough doing nothing to enter this state was difficult.
We all get better at Working through experience, but I can’t say the same for Resting. If anything, we get worse at it as we get encounter more Chaos and shoulder more responsibilities. Instead of truly “resting”, we escape and cope instead. To become a pro, you must learn to be completely present either Working or Resting.
Practicing and getting better at truly Resting allows you to rekindle your desire to see the world and it’s people, and to continue to create. To see and be seen. To love and be loved.
Footnotes:
*I went to a church event and came home around midnight. And it so happened my laptop parental controls were unlocked, so I surfed Youtube for 2.5 hours.
Note to self: Publish posts once it is a “minimally viable product.” This encourages a habit of creating and publishing while reducing the pressure of perfection. And, it increases user engagement with more content.
