Our Collective Need for Rest
This seems like an odd post to write given that I’m coming off a 5 week sabbatical. It’s actually been longer than that since I’ve written, because while my sabbatical officially ended two weeks ago, I’ve been tending to other things since then. So writing here has fallen by the wayside.
I supposed I could use this as justification for my own fatigue; there’s been a lot of work to do in the time since my sabbatical ended. In light of this, who could fault me for thinking about rest?
And, anyone who knows me knows that my sabbatical wasn’t a break from work, so much as a time to dive into learning. Learning can be fatigue-inducing too, you know? Which means, rest is needed.
I’m not writing about fatigue and rest just because of my own experience, however. Instead, here’s my motivation: as I look around me, what I’m seeing is that almost EVERYONE is fatigued to some degree. The world as a whole is tired.
We are all trying to find our way forward in a world that is still trying to figure out what’s normal. Just when society seems to figure out a plan, curveballs get thrown and plans must be readjusted. Continual “pivoting” is fatiguing, both physically and mentally. What’s making the fatigue even more intense is the fact that everyone is attempting to “go about things normally”, when normal is being completely redefined.
Now, humans are extremely adaptable and flexible. We have proven this pretty consistently over the last 6-9 months. Given the fact that this adaptability is being stretch during a time of such uncertainty, however, what we’ve lost is a sense of being able to be adaptable in a manner that is care-free. It’s this lack of care-free energy that is contributing to our collective sense of fatigue.
So what’s the implication for leaders? It means we need to focus on rest, and we need to do so like this:
We need to encourage time for rest, and model taking such time ourselves
We need to give permission for our pace of life to slow down
We need to curb our desire to “get back to normal” and instead be prepared to define and create a new normal
We need to think about ourselves, and take care of our needs AND think about others and take care of them
I think this last point is the actual source of fatigue for so many. How on earth do we care for ourselves AND others? After all, any one of us only has so much energy to give.
From where I stand and from what I’m learning, here’s my take: this is an energetic dance. This is not about competing priorities, but rather co-existing priorities. We need to stop tending to one first, and thinking that we can then tend to the other; instead we need to tend to both in tandem.
So long as we try to navigate between one and the other, we will always feel like we are engaging in a tug-of-war (and if you’ve ever played tug-of-war, you know it’s exhausting). If we can tend to both equally, however, without ignoring one at any given moment, then we can better sustain our energy.
Now, when you’re already depleted, how do you do this? You begin by restoring your own energy, for sure. Rest, rest and more rest. And, once your stores have been replenished, then you begin the dance of tending to yourself WHILE tending to others -- not instead of or at the expense of. Make sense?
Bottom-line: the fatigue you’re feeling is actually in the collective space. The world is tired. So it makes sense that you are as well. Don’t beat yourself up; don’t try to push through. Take care of yourself knowing that as you do, you will be better able to take care of others. Collective rest: it’s what the world really needs right now.