The missing gear in life

Most people live as if they only have two gears in life:

  • Work: doing stuff you don’t feel like doing
  • Play: doing stuff you do feel like doing

Most people only shift between those two gears. But they’re missing a gear.

  • Rest: doing nothing

Without purposely shifting between all three gears, most people fall apart. Without work, we forfeit progress. Without play, we sacrifice purpose. Without rest, we burn out.

But with all three, we thrive.

8 Comments

  1. Good word. Short and to the point. This is a challenge for me, but I’m trying to be more intentional about it. Thanks for the reminder dude.

  2. Amen to that. People try to tell us we’re too lazy if we rest on our down time but I think you’re on to something.

  3. You’re welcome. As I said on Twitter, it’s a reminder for me too. Jewish or not, Sabbath is a good idea… even if it’s just a mindset rather than a strict observance of a particular day of the week.

    -Marshall Jones Jr.

  4. Yes, at least in America (can I include our Canadian friends too?), that’s the one we all tend to struggle with.

    -Marshall Jones Jr.

  5. Yes, I think the problem is that we try to mess all the gears together. We don’t really work when we’re working. We don’t really play when we’re playing. We don’t really do nothing when we rest.

    As a result, people want to get the work out of us when we’re resting because often we didn’t do the work when we were working (if that makes any sense).

    Of course, sometimes it’s just our culture that wants to always produce regardless of how much we’ve already done.

    -Marshall Jones Jr.

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