The end of the semester creeps up quickly. Soon I’ll be heading into my last Christmas break, and then on to my final semester of school. Naturally, I’ve spent a fair amount of time ruminating about what my life will be like a year from now, when it’s no longer divided into semesters and I’m not really identified by a major, a class, or a club.
And then what to do about the one thing that I have never been good at, and which has not improved much in college: rest.
I am not even sure how well I can define “rest,” because it is a kind of stillness that I so rarely experience. On the days that I take extra time reading my Bible, or drawing, or reading something I want to read, it really does feel like a physical rest—I feel refreshed, more focused. And I do know what it’s like without it, and it is constant fatigue.
School in general (and, one could argue, our American lifestyle) is not particularly conducive to rest. My school, though I love it and love the opportunities I’ve had here, is definitely not particularly accommodating. “Rest,” to the extent that I’ve actually known what it is, is something that you “find time for.” Something that you work around all of the more industrious things you could be doing.
Part of the problem is that because of how we live our lives, and are expected to live our lives, rest is a jarring, anxiety-inducing experience. As an English major, I even feel guilty opening up a non-school book anytime during the school year. I’m always thinking of one class’s next reading that I could start, or a grown-up thing to do, like cleaning or laundry or job-searching.
Another part of the problem is the fact that, yes, if you decide to take a day off, not to think about homework or laundry or any other life problem, there are things that won’t get done. That’s true. You won’t have extra time to study or revise that paper.
But part of what comes from rest is the reordering of priorities, the new appreciation and recognition of what you value and what makes you whole.
And the most effective change is not going to come by carving out bits of time off, with an alarm set to count down to when life can begin again. In some ways, it kind of has to go the other way around--you have to restructure your life to be a life of rest. It is going to involve saying no to things, whether it's extra time on social media or extra time on an assignment. When I was in India over the summer, life moved at a much slower pace in some ways--plans were bound to change multiple times by the end of the day, and there was a more tangible sense that things were not in my hands (which is true here in the midst of finals as well). Don't get me wrong--I'm all about hard work, and there is a lot of work that has gone into where I am now, on my part and on a lot of others'. But if our rest feels like a guilt trip, I think we're still doing something wrong.
