Inevitably, when you chase your dreams, live your life and engage yourself with the world, at some point you’ll need to come home for a rest. You can’t keep up your excited pace all the time, and so part of getting there means slowing down and tuning out for a while.
This is nothing new. This is a familiar song and dance, except many people never play the song and they certainly don’t dance. They keep going. One more thing to do. One more hour. One more day, another month and crash.
Sometimes, doing just a little bit more turns out disastrous. It leads us to be flip over and spin our wheels upside down. Sometimes a little bit more leads to trouble, because doing more can never replace being and living and a good plan of action takes that into accounts and schedules pockets or rest.
We need home for a rest.
It’s impossible to go go go, all the time, but it’s so tempting when we are there to do exactly that. So how do we stop?
I think part of it is experience. A big part of it is knowing ourselves and trusting out values. The more confident you become, the more assertive you become and the more you’re able to say no. Saying no is very important. It is a forgotten art, and unvisited ancient temple.
We often say yes. Yes, to the wrong things because we don’t know how to say no and we need help with that. Especially today when the internet connects all continents, time zones, and all people, at any time, day or night, wanted or unwanted.
People can reach you whenever they feel the need to reach you but you can’t let them. If you do you will ignore what you need and hunger for and instead become a someone else’s marionette. And we’re not talking about lazy people here. We are not talking about not doing what we should have done in the first place and then being chased and pursued by people so that we deliver on what we have promised. That’s just a shitty thing to do and if that’s you, you just have to smarten up.
We are talking about doing all that you were asked to do, passionately, purposefully and calling it a day. If you have done all that you can and yet people still come after you to do more, or if you have that internal voice deep inside of you pushing you to do more and more, you have to tell them stop. You have to ignore them. You have to shut them off. Unplug yourself from the world and tell everybody that you’re going home for a rest.
Not a vacation, but a rest. Vacations are great too. Home for a rest, be it physically, or mentally. A retreat that will give you peace and energy to get at life over and over again.
You need to come home for a rest. Only there will you remember who you are and why you are doing what you are doing. Only home will life make sense and only there will you embrace it’s meaning.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Sid Leigh.
