Want to help me get a new desk chair? Check out the details in the donation box below the post and read my stories on Vocal!

Anyone else have a hard time resting?

I’m not talking about sleep, but just rest. Not doing anything. Letting yourself recharge. Reading a book. Playing a video game. Chatting with someone you love at a coffee shop.

This is the kind of rest that I crave often. What other motivation is there to finish my to-do list other than to know I’ll be able to rest at the end of it all? (There’s a whole other post here on the importance of living in the moment, of finding joy in everything you do, but I’ll save that for later.)

When I finish all my work for the week and that rest finally comes, I sit down. I sigh.

And I feel a spark of anxiety.

I should do something productive, thinks my thoroughly worn-out brain. I have to do something. What do I amount to if I’m not doing something?

And so I try to rest. But all the time, that anxiety just keeps building. I should be doing something!!

Here’s how I’ve had to start thinking about it: rest is doing something. It’s listening to God in the quiet moments, it’s taking care of myself, it’s allowing my creativity to rest so that I can create even bigger and better things when I get to work again later. It doesn’t magically make it all better—only faith and practise can do that—but it does help.

Rest is also intentional. If you don’t plan for it, it probably won’t happen. There will always be something else “more important” to do. Even a moment of rest that takes five minutes is better than none at all—and you’ll be surprised at how refreshed you feel afterwards.

Take some time to rest this week. Turns out that “doing nothing” does a whole lot of something for your creative brain.

Happy writing!

—E.J.

---

Want to delve even further into the writing world? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to get a FREE storytelling guidebook right off the bat, plus insider looks into my upcoming works, writing memes, book recs, and much more!

Photo by Aleksandar Cvetanovic on Unsplash