Rest Is Part of the Fight

A pep talk from Grannis.

Now listen here, sugar. You’ve been running like the whole afterlife depends on you keeping the lights from burning out. Running between startup meetings, research presentations, students and their final projects, book submissions, and broken vacation plans—it’s no wonder your bones are on the verge of cracking. My muscles ache just thinking about it. You’re doing three lifetimes’ worth of work, and you’re not even halfway through one mortal stretch.

Here’s a thing I learned many moons ago, back when I was up on Earth and not hanging with the boneheads down here in the Underworld: even warriors need to set down their scythes and take a nap every no and then.

You’ve built so many things that matter. A company that puts people before profits. Books that tell stories of people forgotten in the system. Even carved a career from your own conviction, imagination, grit, and oodles of stubbornness. You’ve already proven you can fight to make this world a better place. But there comes a point when pushing harder just digs you deeper into the ground.

That tightness swelling in your chest? Those tears on the verge of spilling over?

That’s not weakness.

It’s just your body whispering, “Please sit the fudge down before we topple over and break a hip.”
So listen to those bones and just stop to take a breath. Cry if you need to. A loud, ugly, big sob of a cry. There’s no shame in it. The strongest souls are the ones that know when to fall apart for a minute.

And don’t you dare cancel that ocean vacation you’ve been planning for months now. There's no getting the deposit back, so make up your mind to get your money's worth. When you're at the ocean let the tide remind you what true balance feels like—rising and falling, pulling back to gather strength.

I’ve heard the crashing of waves can outshout any inbox. And while you’re letting the sounds crash over you order a drink with a ridiculous little umbrella and toast yourself for surviving this far.

You keep thinking you have to earn your rest. But you keep forgetting…rest is part of the fight. That’s the only way you’ll gather the stength to rise again.

When the morning comes, you’ll still have every dream you fought for—your words, your ideas, your daughter, your mission to fix the grid and the world around it. None of that disappears because you paused.

So tonight, don’t be the professor, the founder, or the author. Be you—the person who dared to build all of it in the first place, but is going to kick their feet up for the night.

Now now more stressing about things falling a part while you nap. The universe can wait one night.

— With Love, Grannis