A Life of Rest

Give yourself a break. You’ve been at this a while and you push yourself so hard. It’s understandable, the pushing. A part of you feels like given the option you would just lie down by the side of road and rest forever. Resting is great, when you let yourself do it. Nice when you don’t feel like there’s anything you have to do, when it’s just you and a glass of wine and your thoughts. If you’ve been pushing yourself hard enough, such moments can seem like life at its best. You understand the lure of retirement, an endless string of days where not one thing is required of you, and where you have nothing to prove or achieve.

The problem with a life of rest is that you still care about things. You care about things because the mind doesn’t actually rest, at least not the way the body does. You may be sitting with your glass of wine staring at the garden, but thoughts keep drifting to you. Most of them are old and tired out, nothing more than unresolved complaints, really. Then one comes along similar to ones you’ve had before but just different enough that it gets your attention. Now that’s interesting. It’s also not a complaint. It seems, in fact, like a solution, though you’re not sure to what. You’d like to find out, though.

To ignore this new idea, to not care about it, feels like a betrayal, as if you’ve been given an important assignment and you’re choosing to let someone else deal with it. Except no one else can. It’s only been given to you. Plus, it’s cool. Soon enough, you’re not resting anymore. It seemed to have happened against your will, but you’re having fun, and you remember that work, when you care about it, when you choose it, is hardly work at all. It’s just you doing what you’re meant to do.

Until you can’t find the next way forward, and this new thing feels like a mess because you’ve messed it up, and it’s not fun at all. Maybe you just need to work a little harder. The assignment still feels important. You don’t want to disappoint. This is when you’ve got to give yourself a break. Pushing is useless. This isn’t quitting. Remember how the idea came to you in first place. You’re weren’t trying to do anything – just the opposite – and yet it came to you just the same. There’s something within you that can’t quit, it only moves forward, and if you relax a little, you will inevitably move with it.

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Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com