Rest as a skill

With leaves falling and autumn arriving, the new school year has started and people are returning from holiday. It feels like a new work year has begun. All this got me thinking about the coming seasons, which led me to watch a video about winter and slowing down. More specifically about how plants go dormant during this time. They stop growing, drop their leaves and just rest for months.

Plants don’t feel guilty about it.

They don’t try to stay busy.

They just stop.

It made me realize how terrible I am at resting.

I barely take time off. Maybe a few hours in a week on occasion, usually for other people helping with moving, family or appointments. When I do manage to take a vacation day, I end up reorganizing my workspace or learning some framework that might be useful later. On the rare occasion I plan a weekend trip, I do most of the organizing and planning weeks before. Even then, I worked late into the night on the first day of a two-day holiday…

Even when I’m not working, I’m still working. Last time I had a free weekend I spent it setting up a better development environment.

I convinced myself this was normal. Everyone in tech or in other fields is always doing something, always learning the next thing. Taking actual time to do nothing felt like falling behind.

But maybe that’s the point. I don’t have a rest problem. I have a stopping problem.

So this year I want to practice stopping. No side projects. No new setup. No planning ahead. Just stop.

Writing that down feels strange. Which probably means I need it.