To rest or not to rest

Photo credit: @alexbertha by Unsplash

This past Thursday, I unplugged myself from the relentless news cycle and went to a bathhouse with a close friend. Ten hours later, I emerged, cleaner, and clearer on the work that is mine to do. I also emerged with a healthy amount of guilt.

Who does this? Takes a full day off work in the middle of accelerating heartbreak, coming at the tail-end of so much other deep and sustained pain? I feel the weight of this question as I crawl into bed that night, exhausted from the heat and the water. The world is burning and there are not enough firefighters. What was I thinking?

If a friend presented me with this conundrum, I know what I would say: You need rest. You are worthy of sleep. And I truly believe that. I have worked too many years in the not-for-profit sector, where burn-out and overwork are glorified, where sending emails on a Sunday is publicly lamented but privately lauded, where we compete about who is the least able to sleep.

Yet when I wake up Friday, it is not this knowledge that dissolves my guilt. Yes, we all need rest, and we are all worthy of sleep. The right to radical rest is a hill I will die on.

But more importantly: this is not about me. From where I sit in this intricate web of interconnectedness, my contribution will never immediately save lives or literally put out fires. The work that is mine to do is urgent, but no emergency. It cannot be done by centering myself, nor by refusing to rest.

And so I sit.