Monday, August 31, 2015

Rest.

We've all heard something like it before:

"I'll sleep when I'm dead."

"Rest is for the week."

"It's all about the hustle."

Our modern culture isn't big on rest. And that shouldn't come as a surprise given our proclivities-bordering-on-obsession in regards to distraction, over-indulgence, materialism, and commerce. If we do anything at all as a people, we go. We associate stopping with weakness, we are addicted to an ideal of constant achievement, and we are uncomfortable with stillness & quiet. We define a successful life in terms of measurable quantities (read: "bank account") and relegate any and all attention that could be paid to the inner life to a back burner that never gets lit.

Rest is not our thing.

This thought has been bouncing around in my own head for at least a year now. I discovered awhile back that I more-or-less sucked at rest. For the life of me, I could not take a solid day off without feeling like I was missing out on an opportunity to do something. For that reason, I found myself massively frustrated every time I wound up moderately sick - which is to say, sick enough to make being around people in a social context completely inappropriate but not sick enough that I would feel justified in just letting myself recover. I would find myself asking questions like, "Am I really so sick that I can't workout a little?" and "I can still practice, right?"

For whatever reason, the sense of need I felt to do would make me feel like a slacker if I didn't power through in some way and accomplish something. 

I think I had bought into the lie that enough hard work, enough effort, and enough achievement in some way magically guaranteed the realization of my dreams. If I could just continue to keep chipping away at the stone, eventually God would have to move me right where I'd always wanted to be.

But then I began thinking about all of the things that go unheeded when the idea of rest (not to mention the necessity of it) is viewed as a universal pejorative. Did I really want to be the guy who couldn't slow down, who couldn't relax, and who couldn't find it within himself to appreciate where he was at any given moment if that place didn't happen to be THE PLACE he hoped & prayed he would one day end up?

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Success & its Anticedents OR Why "Successful People" Don't Post Inspirational Memes

Last night, the boys of Modern Suspects and myself had a quick laugh over this meme:


This morning, I woke up thinking about it. Not just laughing about it anymore, but thinking about it. So, here we are.

Now, on the most basic level, I get it. This is supposed to be funny in a cynical, "I'm cooler than inspirational memes" kind of way. It's supposed to imply a wink and a smile at the notion of being tapped into what's really going on: namely, that successful people don't post inspirational memes because they don't need them, and that the people who do actually take the time to share these kinds of ideas are those with some sort of desperate need to believe that they're not missing the boat or that life isn't passing them by.

But here's the deal.

I couldn't help but think this morning that if the idea that "successful people" have no time for inspiration or encouragement or philosophy happens to be true, then that fact says a lot more about "successful people" than it does about anyone else.

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