Resting is one of those things that’s so easily overlooked.
It’s so easy to see resting as taking time off, taking a break.
Which it is.
But for people who are struggling to have discipline in life and struggling to control themselves and apply their energies to good work, we are so used to taking time off, relaxing, hanging out, that resting overall really sometimes just seems like one of those extra activities.
It’s like dessert.
You know, it’s like, wow, it tastes good, but you don’t really need it for your nutrition.
It’s just an extra bonus, and one not to be indulged in too much.
And yet at the same time, I think we all understand the value of rest, the necessity to have good rest in order to be able to keep going.
It really seems to be a commonplace in our culture, and an understandable one, that there’s a focus on doing work.
Or among people that aren’t interested in work, it’s about active partying, having fun.
So really it’s work and fun, and resting really gets the short end, doesn’t get the same intensity of appreciation often.
But, of course, I don’t need to talk about, you know, why it’s important to get a good night’s sleep.
We all know that.
And once again, this is ClichéTube.
It is SpeakingtheObviousTube.
It is simple and perhaps obvious statements that simply hit me with their importance.
And in this case, it just hits me that I need to keep reminding myself of how critical resting is.
And I look at it in two types, or two grades, perhaps, of resting that we have.
There’s the regular everyday resting.
That’s getting a good night’s sleep.
That’s every night.
Being able to put work down, being able to put problems down, put thoughts down, and simply have good night’s rest every single night whenever possible to recharge, and all the different practical factors that go into setting that up, to making that possible, to removing all the barriers to that simple- the supremely simple activity of quietly lying in bed for many hours doing nothing.
All the logistics that have to be set up to make that possible, clearing the time and space and the conditions to be able to have those hours of rest every night.
And that’s the everyday rest.
And what I’m thinking about today is a kind of deep rest, a kind of taking a break that is beyond the regular night’s sleep.
It’s like when you get that deep night’s sleep where I turn off the alarm clock and just let myself have as many hours as I can possibly have.
The feeling of- there’s a certain feeling that brings- just the feeling that it’s time to make that break, that punctuation mark in the passage of time.
I find it useful at a kind of season break, as the seasons turn as there’s a particular milestone reached, a certain landmark where our minds are readjusting to a new mode, that this is a good time to allow this full system shutdown.
Just put things in order.
To have nothing scheduled, nothing needed to be done for many hours.
Have the time to settle in and just let myself have a deep, long sleep.
And I guess what really makes it different, the extra ingredient, is this sense of completely letting go of everything in our mind.
All of the thoughts, all the atmosphere of thinking, the various background thoughts, the loose-end tasks in our mind, and letting all these go, so it is like a complete system shutdown.
And then just letting myself rest, as if- it’s as if on a regular sleep- and maybe this should be the attitude every night.
Maybe to have a deep sleep every night, maybe that is the ideal.
Maybe it shouldn’t just be for special occasions, but every night.
But as I experience it now, on a regular night’s sleep, there’s still- there’s a sense of, okay, I’m going to sleep, I know what I’m doing in the morning, I’m ready, I will be ready to do my tasks and start the next day.
I’m going to go to sleep and then go into my day.
But the deep rest feeling is just that I’m done.
This is- I don’t even know what I will wake up to tomorrow.
Maybe it’s like I’ll let my my brain state be something completely different, my mindset.
Let myself completely reset, so that I don’t even know.
I don’t even know what state of mind I’ll wake up in tomorrow, and it doesn’t matter.
I’ll let it be a completely new time, a new phase of life.
Let it be a complete reset.
So what I leave as an open question is: is this- am I simply describing what sleeping is? And is this simply a regular night’s sleep, or the ideal night’s sleep? Letting go of everything, having deep rest, and starting again new.
Or is there this special occasion of deep rest? Well, either way, I’m going to start with one night, right now.