Cultivating Play and Rest. Letting Go of Exhaustion as Status Symbol…

Guidepost 7: Cultivating Play and Rest, Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth

This guidepost has two big elements.

First, play. There are a few key properties of play:

It’s time spent without purpose

It’s something you don’t want to end (lose track of time)

It dissolves your hyper-self-consciousness. You lose yourself in the action.

Play is the opposite of how most achievers live their lives: Everything has to be for a specific aim, time must be tracked intensely, and we’re constantly concerned with how we’re appearing to others.

As such, play is written off as trivial, or foolish.

But Stuart Brown, author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, begs to differ. He tells us that play isn’t a luxury. It’s actually a necessity for us to operate in the fullness of our potential.

This is because “The opposite of play is not work, the opposite of play is depression.”

Put another way: the more that play disappears from your life, the closer you move towards a state of depression.

The same goes for rest. Many people see rest as a luxury and vilify it with an “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” attitude.

But again, the exact opposite is true. Without appropriate rest, you prevent yourself from fully experiencing the moments of your days. I’d propose a revised version of the above quip: “Without sleep, I’m practically dead already.”

Furthermore, the TIME you spend working is a shoddy metric for progress. What matters most is the quality of the ATTENTION and ENERGY you bring to what you do.

Affirmation: I am self-compassionate.

The Responsible Decision (Andy Andrews)

The Buck Stops Here!

Each of you must be responsible to do your creative best with your life. Gal. 6:4

If decisions are choices…and our thinking dictates our decisions—then I am where I am because of my thinking.

My thoughts will be constructive---NEVER destructive.

Responsibility is about HOPE and Control. Make better choices. (Add Play and Rest to your life.😍)