I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about rest lately.
Not sleep. Not vacations.
Actual rest.
Because I think a lot of us confuse rest with escaping, and they’re not the same thing at all.
Most people aren’t tired because they work too hard. They’re tired because they never actually rest.
Escaping Is Running From Life
Escaping looks like:
- scrolling endlessly
- binge-watching shows you don’t even enjoy
- drinking just to shut your brain off
- filling every quiet moment with noise
I’ve done all of it.
Escaping isn’t evil. Sometimes it’s understandable. Life can be heavy, loud, and relentless. But escaping doesn’t restore anything. It just delays the crash.
You come back from escaping just as drained as when you left — sometimes worse.
Rest Is Returning to Yourself
Rest doesn’t numb you.
It settles you.
For me, rest often looks like:
- sitting outside doing absolutely nothing
- watching the sky change
- listening to birds instead of voices
- walking without a destination
- standing in the yard with my hands in my pockets, thinking about nothing important
There’s no dopamine hit. No distraction. Just space.
And at first, that space can feel uncomfortable — especially if you’re used to constant stimulation. But if you sit with it long enough, something shifts.
Your shoulders drop.
Your breathing slows.
Your thoughts stop racing.
That’s rest.
Why Modern Life Makes This Hard
We live in a world that treats stillness like a problem.
If you’re not:
- producing
- optimizing
- consuming
- reacting
Then you’re “wasting time.”
But I’ve found the opposite to be true.
The moments where I do nothing on purpose are often the moments that give me the most clarity. They’re the moments where I remember who I am outside of roles, responsibilities, and expectations.
That’s something I wrote about in Why I Choose a Slower Life — slowing down isn’t laziness, it’s alignment.
You Can’t Escape Forever
The thing about escaping is it always ends.
The show stops.
The scroll runs dry.
The noise fades.
And when it does, whatever you were running from is still there — often louder.
Rest, on the other hand, actually prepares you to face life again.
It doesn’t remove problems, but it gives you the steadiness to carry them.
Learning to Sit With Yourself
One of the most valuable skills I’ve learned is simply sitting with myself without needing to change the moment.
No phone.
No music.
No goal.
Just being.
Silence isn’t empty — it’s where things settle.
Rest Isn’t Quitting
Rest doesn’t mean you don’t care.
It doesn’t mean giving up on responsibilities or checking out of life.
It means recognizing that you’re not a machine.
That you don’t need to escape your life — you need to create one you don’t constantly need to run from.
The Quiet Difference
Escaping makes time disappear.
Rest makes time feel full.
One leaves you numb.
The other leaves you grounded.
I still escape sometimes. I’m human. But I’m learning to notice the difference — and to choose rest more often than distraction.
And honestly, most days, that choice looks very simple.
I step outside.
I breathe.
I let the world move without me for a while.
That’s enough.
– Just a note from the yard.