Last Updated on July 21, 2009
Maybe it’s the warm weather or the (finally) sunny days, or maybe it’s because I’d been doing a lot of running lately, but I’ve been instinctively feeling the need to rest. But intuitively speaking, that’s not a bad thing since many people have been known to be the most creative or experience flashes of insight and inspiration when they’re rested.
The problem is, in our society, rest is often misconstrued as laziness. We’re taught that ‘the early bird gets the worm’ and we need to be always striving to reach the finish line – two concepts that often fly in the face of intuition. Our instincts may instead be leading us to be still and let someone else reach the finish line so that we can be ready to experience something different and better for us.
Periods of rest played a part in the success of some of our greatest thinkers. In fact, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein are all known to have been proponents of adding naps into their day in order to feel refreshed and be more effective in their lives. While I’m not one that takes naps during the day, I’ve found that I feel a sudden burst of energy in the afternoons when I’ve taken a break and rested my mind from the constant thinking, interviewing and writing that make up my day.
Intuitive Action Item: For the rest of the week, take some time in the middle of your day to rest. It need not be a nap; it could be 15 minutes of doing nothing but sitting in the sun, taking a brief walk or reading a chapter from a book or a magazine (but it has to be leisure reading, not reading for work or for professional reasons). Take note of how the rest of your day goes, and whether you find, in fact, that the rested bird is really the one that gets the better treasure in the end.
I totally can relate to this post. Reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where George was always speeding in order to beat his own time. Personally, I think you miss out on life when you’re always rushing but I seem to be in the minority.
-K.M.