Rest

Graduate school can be a totalizing endeavor. Oftentimes, I feel like I should always be working. Sometimes, I really want to vacuum (I know I must be getting older if I actually want to vacuum). But I don't, because I need to be reading more, writing more, or thinking more about politics. While I am lucky enough to generally enjoy my work, it is still work. If I don't tear myself away from my reading, I can't go to yoga or ballet. If I don't take a break from writing, I might miss out on lunch with a friend. Lord knows that if I don't stop thinking about my work, Mark might begin to dread conversations with me. And yet, sometimes I just don't feel like it is okay to stop. There is always one more book or article that I feel I should read. Someone in the normal working world might, similarly, feel like he needs to constantly check his work e-mail on nights and weekends.

It can be a bit of addiction. There can be a little high associated with doing more than what was expected. After a fourteen-hour day of work, I sometimes feel proud of myself for being exceedingly dedicated.

But at some point, one needs to stop.

Rest and play are at least as important as work. It can be difficult to feel like a whole person when work is one's life. Leisure is necessary. By leisure and rest, I don't really mean sitting in front of a screen and watching a marathon of Alias. I am guilty of sometimes pretending that watching television or surfing the Internet counts as rest, but I can pretend all I want and those things will never do what real rest does. I worked way too much this week, but when I do manage to strike a decent work/leisure balance there are a few things I usually turn to in my time of rest:

1. Walk or run outside
2. Visit a museum
3. Bake
4. Have lunch with a friend
5. Host a dinner party
6. Volunteer
7. Go to Mass
8. Exercise
9. Nap
10. Sing and dance around the apartment

I hope y'all find some way to keep rest in your lives. In a world that seems to encourage allowing work to seep into every aspect of life, I think it is important to designate some time that is meant for play.