Wrestling with Rest

"Never stop, never settle."

"Work in silence and let your Ferrari make all the noise."

"While your competition is sleeping, you should be grinding. "

The above list of quotes is from my 'Write it on a page, then tear up that page and throw the remains in a petrol fueled fire'-list. The reason for that is, is that somewhere the world lost the plot about what we should pursuing, and before we knew it, we were all 10k-follower seeking goblins trying to wrestle ourselves through a sleep-deprived world. Is it worthwhile however and how will it end?

Let's stop and do a little damage assessment.

So, what's the damage?

Research (my google search that brought me to this article:https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep-deprivation/effects-on-body) shows that lack of sleep can have the following effects on your body: memory issues, irritation (mood swings), accidents and even weakened immunity. Feel free to read the whole article, it's pretty cool.

The damage, however, goes way further than that if we take into account that in our pursuit of excellence (or whatever you are pursuing) we have to say yes to some things and no to other things. Saying yes to more money (almost always) means saying no to time with loved ones. Saying yes to having 10 000 followers to impress, means saying no to having an authentic life. Furthermore, we try to wrestle this new lifestyle all the while being exhausted by lack of sleep. The cycle we found ourselves in then reminds me of the Dancing Plague in 1518 in France. People literally danced themselves to death, and whether it was to cope with the stress of those times or because of some otherworldly power that possessed them, what seemed to be something comical or amusing turned out to be really terrible.

The same is true, I believe for today. Sure there seems to be nothing wrong with having 3 jobs, 2 Instagram accounts and 3 hours of average sleep per night, but it all seems a little bit scary to me if you count up the costs.

Damage Limitation

I recently learned this word from Formula 1 and I promised myself I would use it in a blog, so here we go. Luckily my newfound word, works perfectly in this context...we all need to do damage limitation with where we are. Like the next guy, I too want to make my millions and feel like I have made a true impact in the world, but there needs to be intentional rest integrated in our lives, or else we might find ourselves in an irreparable situation.

Although damage limitation is not avoiding the damage altogether, it means we take actions to remedy the damage that is already there. With this I'm saying that we don't need to quit our jobs and move to the Maldives and sell sandals made out of bananas, but I am saying that we could place boundaries and guardrails in our current environments to help bring us back to life. An example could be screen time; we have these limits for kids, why not implement it for adults. Another is to have a work-email-boundary: no replies on Sundays, or even weekends. Whatever action you can take based on you current environment, limiting the damage should be at the top of your list when taking action.

Find your own motivation.

To end off, allow me to recreate the quotes at the start of this post to fit the sentiment:

"Sometimes stop, never settle."

"Work in silence and rest in silence and let your 'suitable for your environment mode of transport' make all the noise."

"While your competition is sleeping, you should be sleeping too, because sleep is good for you, boo. "

TF