Sorry, Closed On Sunday

Insight 58 | (A Rest Ethic For High Efficiency.)

If you haven’t felt the frustration that comes from pulling up to a Chick-fil-A on a Sunday only to realize it's Sunday and obviously they are closed, then I don't think you have really walked through the trenches of what true heartbreak feels like. (I'm only partially kidding)

It is devastating, but then again, it's this practice that has led to the company's estimated value of nearly 4.5 billion.

Chick-fil-A upholds that its success comes from its focus on taking care of its employees, knowing that if they do that, then its employees will take great care of their customers. This starts with providing them with a guaranteed day of rest.

They’re pretty smart, but we should remember that this idea is nothing new; I mean, God set the example by taking a day to rest after creating the world, didn't he?

Nevertheless, although the wisdom of rest has been around for millennia, we are STILL running as fast as we can on our little treadmills. Dying to get from one place to the other, while never stopping to check the map or catch our breath. 

But what if it wasn’t this way, and instead we too tried being Closed On Sunday? What if we also learned to develop a rest ethic and implement it as diligently as we pursue our goals?

I wonder what our lives would look like then.

Let's be honest with ourselves. You’re a hard worker, so doing hard things is how you roll. You get after it, and that's amazing, but by extension, it's very likely that because you're a hard worker, taking time to do nothing is one of the most challenging activities for you to engage in.

At least it's this way for me.

When summer arrived, I decided to dedicate three months to a purpose-driven focus, honing my craft and producing high-quality work while developing systems to set me up for long-term success. I came into this with big ambitions, as well as numerous sticky notes and great intentions.

What I found throughout it is that much of that faded. Those three months were a boot camp, a daily reminder to keep my head down and work, and in full sincerity, there were times I questioned whether this plan was ever worth it, if it would make a difference or matter, I was doing so much, seeing very little and about three weeks in, I almost lost my mind!

Yes, I was writing what I had wanted to write, but I was slowly losing the joy of doing so. 

My mother, so astute, recommended I take a break and do something else. I knew she was right, so over the next few days, I reimmersed myself in a variety of hobbies that I enjoy, from running to reading, playing the guitar, or watching business advice-infused YouTube videos while “unwinding.”

I am sad to report that none of these solutions worked, and days later, I was still experiencing headaches while staring at my screen, trying to enjoy doing what I love — writing — but needing to lie down because I just couldn't think clearly. 

This is when the realization hit me: All those “relaxing” activities I was partaking in during my time off weren't “actually” relaxing at all!

No, they were me trying to get ahead of the others, even when I was supposed to be getting some time in with myself. I was continuously trying to kill two birds with one stone, because obviously, if I could both rest and be productive (even during my off time), then the dividends from this practice would multiply upon one another, and wow, those returns would be incredible.

You can blame the finance degree or the culture; it doesn't matter. Either way, I was doing less by trying to do more, and when I mentioned my situation to my mother, she came to the same conclusion and prescribed a good dose of nothing to cure my uninspired state of mind. 

She said, “Dani, have you tried doing nothing?”

I will admit my mother is the odd one out when it comes to encouraging her son to do nothing, but the truth of the matter is that this perspective is one we should all share and implement more often. What she was telling me was this: 

Dani, do you realize that if you keep revving and riding without ever making a pit stop for gas or new tires, then one day you’ll wake up with an empty tank or your tires will burst, and there’ll be no way to fix it in time?

Although I knew she was right, I still felt this slight guilt surrounding really taking time off, not multitasking during laundry with a motivational video, or having a podcast on while walking, but I had already tried doing everything else, so I went ahead and tried doing nothing. 

I texted a friend, asked if he was open for a bit, and to my eager joy, he responded yes. For the next few hours, we indulged in the nostalgia of childhood, playing a game I hadn't touched in almost three years. 

It was completely unproductive and to many could have been labeled a “waste of time” … but you know what happened the next day?

My inspiration returned!

That's right, the haze that had been fogging up my neurons dissipated, and the words cut like a sharpened steel blade. I was back, baby. 

While I realize that in life, we can’t rely solely on inspiration, going from one whim to the next while ignoring discipline, I must admit that working under the influence of a motivated mind is unparalleled. And taking a day off lubricates the brain like nothing else.

Yes, it's a strange problem, the not being able to stop. But I’ve had to come to peace with the fact that this is not entirely our fault. The world is telling us to go, go, go, and society is telling us to produce all the time.

When we do get off work, we try to self-medicate our tired minds with mindless content, but that only leads to a deeper numbing because more content doesn't make you more content (read that one carefully and you’ll see what I mean). Yes, this “keep going” mentality might make us productive at times, but it also turns us into little Hamsters, stuck on treadmills that spin futilely. 

On the contrary, what stopping to be intentional about rest does is it acts like a palette cleaner. 

The most expensive restaurants in the world with their twenty-course meals prioritize giving you a little something between the dishes to get you ready, prepared, for the next round. When smelling an expensive perfume, you take a break to catch a whiff of coffee beans (addisuna.com) to better distinguish between the subtle notes in each upcoming fragrance. And the best example is that of farmers who have long understood this principle and allow the land to rest on certain years in order to achieve better yields in the following seasons.

See, it’s this rest ethic —the actual stopping of what you're doing to rest —that allows you to be fully immersed and therefore more productive in your other activities. It's what rejuvenates us with perspective.

We should all realize that our day of rest is not really our day off, but our greatest day on. It’s what sets us up for the good fight everywhere else.

—

Ladies and Gentlemen, Rihanna got it wrong, it’s not all “work, work,  work, work, work.” 

This isn't about settling to kill only one bird with one stone; it's about putting your stones down and choosing to stop killing birds. Going and going till you've got nothing to give is not a practice that lives in the realm of reasonable; it'll lead to you doing less over time while you give more and have nothing to show for it. 

I don't know if you need it, but if you do, then here's your permission to take a day off (it might not be a Sunday for you, choose the day that works best with your schedule). As a matter of fact, here is an encouragement to do so more often, once a week to be precise.

Recovery is more than just giving your body a good stretch or staying relatively static for 24 hours. No, real rest comes from developing a rest ethic.

And most times, that starts with doing nothing.

- Making The Most Of Being Curious

Daniel J. Cuesta

P.S. This is a complete side note, but have you ever thought about how violent the Chick-fil-A cows are? I mean, they’re geniuses, in one way. You know, saving their own hide (pun intended), is smart, but condemning the whole chicken species to be fried and grilled is quite the sentence. 

Anyways, if you need me, I'll be out grabbing some waffle fries and lemonade. (as long as you're not reading this on a Sunday;)

Sources: 

God Did It First, Lol: Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done. - Genesis 2:3

We Must Keep The Sabbath: There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. - Hebrews 4:9-11

I Mean, How Much Clearer Does It Need To Be: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God… - Exodus 20:8–10

Rest and Its Impact: He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. - Psalm 23:2–3

Let The Land Rest: Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow. - Exodus 23:10–11

Chick-fil-A Values: Link