Rest without recovery is just a false start.

Burn out and entitlement are the norm, peace and balance are the exception. Working beyond your means does not increase your means. Consistent, incremental steps generate lasting and meaningful change.

We’ve lost our ability to taper, to ebb after a flow, and that makes us weaker, not stronger. R&R is a powerful tool when properly wielded. It is what can get you back going stronger after a hard fall. When we do not fully embrace R&R, due to guilt / shame / fear, we are committing to sandbagging in all that we do moving forward.

What’s perhaps worse, is that we deprive ourselves of the richness of introspection, the time to check in with our inner selves and review our paths’ findings. These raw and intimate internal dialogues are a prerequisite for steering any life in any steadfast direction. In these moments, profound insights are derived and calibrations are made that sometimes affect the course of the rest of our lives. By not making time for ourselves to have these redeeming moments, we lose ourselves until we wonder how we got where we end up.

Assuming burn out equates to “giving it your all”, maximizing your potential, or a bonafide path to success, is a fool’s philosophy. It’s the same reasoning as “get rich quick” schemes in which you can win the lottery of fortune with a few short classes in an ocean of complexity. To be clear, seminars, continued education, academia play a role in building success, but it should never be conflated with an entitlement to success (as most formal university education programs falsely advertise). Success from hard work spent learning and preparing for grueling term papers and exams is not a guarantee nor a significant indicator of succeeding outside the academic environment.

Success is not a finite game. It’s an infinite one. When people come to terms with this, it makes it easier for them to reason about long-term investments like R&R on their overall wellbeing. Knowing that success will not find you, but that instead you will try and fail until you get glimpses of it, you begin to play a long-game.

You tend to care of yourself better when you think life is going to be long and the road to success bumpy.

An example of rest without recovery are holiday visits with the in-laws, in which we are docked at work for the time taken off, but the recovery is nonexistent.