Filled
A few years ago, the Coskey family was faced with an unfortunate situation. The family of seven had discovered a break in their water line, which would require a $900 repair job. With their unsteady employment situation, the timing of the incident was far from ideal. That’s when they got their water bill. Over the period of two months, their typically 10,000 gallon a month usage had skyrocketed to 274,000 gallons, costing them a total of $2500! All for water that they had not even used!
While the Coskey example is extreme, there is one part of their painful story that resonates with every one of us. While we may not have $2,500 water bills, our relationships, jobs, and health are paying the price for a broken understanding of work and rest. When you read that last sentence, did you feel yourself get tense? Don’t worry, it’s not just you. We live in a culture that works harder and longer than just about any other culture before yet our rates of depression and anxiety are abnormally high. Our connection to healthy work and rest cracked a long time ago. Since that crack first appeared, our society has slowly been losing its grasp on the way in which we were designed to live out our humanity.
I finished graduate school several years ago and have since had the privilege of looking back on my college years as I have reflected upon my own unhealthy connection to work and rest. As an architecture student, I was expected to spend abnormally long hours developing my designs, prohibiting me from getting the healthy amount of sleep my body and spirit required. No day of the week was safe from my grueling homework demands and it left me consistently feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally frayed. I would compare it to how one would feel standing tip toe on the brink of a breakdown, fearing that even the tiniest additional assault to my sleep or emotions would push me over the edge. However, I was able to justify this unhealthy and life-sucking status I maintained for most of this season of my life by the excuse that I loved what I was doing and that all the pain would be worth it in the end.
“Our connection to healthy work and rest cracked a long time ago. Since that crack first appeared, our society has slowly been losing its grasp on the way in which we were designed to live out our humanity.”
Don’t get me wrong! I really was/am in love with my architectural vocation! But despite the enjoyment I received from accomplishing work that I loved, I still felt that my “trampoline” was out of whack (see my previous blog). Without realizing it, I had discovered that the joy we receive from pursuing fulfilling work is endangered when it is pursued at the expense of our human need for balanced levels of work and rest.
Near the end of my college season, I became so fascinated with the concept of the Jewish practice of Sabbath that I began to study it by listening to podcasts and reading books on the topic. What I learned reshaped the way I chose to design my life. Ever since ancient times, the Jews had been very careful to follow the 10 commandments they had received through Moses. The fifth commandment was to “remember the Sabbath day”. On that day, the Jews were to rest from their work. The Hebrew word for rest is shabat (which is where the word “Sabbath” comes from). It can be directly translated to mean “stop” or “be complete”, but it can also be translated “to celebrate”. You see the Sabbath was meant to be more than just a day where the Jews caught up on sleep, but rather it was a time of reflection and celebration, a time where they could sit and enjoy the work they had completed the previous six days.
“The joy we receive from pursuing fulfilling work is endangered when it is pursued at the expense of our human need for balanced levels of work and rest.”
Picture this: a farmer stands on his back porch after a long hard week of working in the fields. As he plops his sweaty, weary body down in his favorite rocking chair, he can almost hear his thankful muscles and joints sing out “Hallelujah!” in joyful ecstasy. As the golden red sun begins to slowly set in the West, he looks out over his fields and surveys the fruit (or in this case vegetables) of his labor. The corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly as he gently rocks back and forth, back and forth. Undoubtedly there still remains endless amounts of work the coming week but for now, he relishes the moment of quietly satisfying peace, a peace that settles deeper into his bones than any aches or groans ever could.
This is what it means to celebrate our work. It is the holy interlude of quiet solemnity when our spirit is still long enough to survey what we have accomplished in joyous gratitude, the life-giving tension between toil recently quitted and toil yet to come. It ought to be a treasured and cherished part of our lives. Yet how often do we find ourselves exhausted and spent, as if chained to the incessantly moving plows of our careers, to-do lists, hobbies, and responsibilities? Society might have created the monster of exhaustion but it is we who adopted it, fed it, and embraced it. As this monster’s power of manipulation and coercion grew, it was not long before the pet would become the master.
“This is what it means to celebrate our work. It is the holy interlude of quiet solemnity when our spirit is still long enough to survey what we have accomplished in joyous gratitude, the life-giving tension between toil recently quitted and toil yet to come.”
I believe we can begin to loosen the chains around our neck when we start to reexamine our relationship with work. As I have challenged my own understanding of how humans were made to live, particularly through the teaching and writing of author John Mark Comer (check out his book Garden City for more on this topic), I began to see work through the metaphor of water. As this metaphor for work began to clarify my understanding of the matter, I came to see work (or any task for that matter) in one of these three categories: Unfulfilling, Fulfilling, or Refilling.
Unfulfilling
Picture in your mind a pitcher of water and an empty glass. The pitcher represents what you might call our “life levels”. When it is full, we are full of life mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When it is empty, so are we. The cup represents our purpose. When it remains empty, we also feel a sense of emptiness due to the fact that there lies a part of our purpose still incomplete. However, when that cup is filled through our life’s actions (i.e. the water), it brings a great sense of satisfaction and purpose, like we are doing the thing that we were made to do. Now picture holding the empty cup of water underneath the pitcher of water as you slowly tip the pitcher over…only to spill all of the water on the ground! Now the pitcher is empty and so is the cup. Completely unfulfilled.
We can arrive in this state when we find ourselves in a job, relationship, or responsibility where our time, energy, and effort is required of us yet no feeling of satisfaction results. It is the man who takes out the trash for his spouse but only after much nagging, resulting in an empty trash can but also an empty life. It is the woman who arrives to work Monday morning already wishing it was Friday as she receives no joy or satisfaction from what she does, just a paycheck and, yet again, an empty life.
Unfulfilling work or tasks are probably the saddest because they truly are a waste. The empty pitcher and empty cup are emblematic of the frustrating state of giving and giving of our energy and seeming to receive no lasting feeling of fulfillment in return. Yet for many, this is reality.
Fulfilling
Let’s take a step back in time and try that metaphor again. Picture holding the empty cup of water underneath the pitcher of water as you again slowly tip the pitcher over, but this time EUREKA! The cup in your hand which was previously empty has now transformed into – you guessed it – a full cup of water! Instead of disappointment as you look at all that spilled water on the ground, your face is filled with satisfaction as you hold that cup of cold, fresh water up to your lips, tip it back, and enjoy its refreshing affect upon your dehydrated body. You enjoy it so much that you fill the cup again! As your body feeds upon the life-giving water, you repeat the act, again and again, until finally there is no longer any more water to be poured out. While much more hydrated, you now find that you are empty with nothing left to give.
This is the field where most of us tend to camp out. It is a place of partial yet exhausted fulfillment. This is where I spent most of my college days. While the work I was producing and the accomplishments I was achieving were truly fulfilling and deeply satisfying, no amount of accomplishment or achievement could replace my desperate need for replenishing my pitcher. Maybe you can relate with this state in which I found myself. Perhaps you also feel as if your life is one continual sprint in which you find yourself running and running, desperately trying to get somewhere only to discover that you have been running on a treadmill the whole time.
While necessary, I believe that fulfilling work has the dangerous power to trick us into thinking that fulfillment is all we need to be whole. When confronted about this exhaustive state, many respond by stating that “I don’t need rest, I enjoy working”, or something along those lines. To add insult to injury, not only is this dilemma ignored, it is encouraged! When we see these hard working energizer bunnies keep going and going and going, instead of encouraging them to rest before they reach burnout, we celebrate them! We praise their ability to keep going without quitting, as if they weren’t human beings in need of rest from time to time. I once heard it said that the Sabbath is the only one of the ten commandments that we can break and receive praise for doing so. How sad but true!
“Fulfilling work has the dangerous power to trick us into thinking that fulfillment is all we need to be whole.”
Refilling
Once more, we hold in our hands our pitcher and our cup of water. We have just finished drinking the last drop of water from our cup and now both the cup and the pitcher are as dry as dust. When we were stuck in the “fulfilling” category, we were enamored with the fulfilling water but with no way to replenish our life levels. However, the difference between the “fulfilling” and the “refilling” categories is this: now you take the time to refill your pitcher! Imagine that. Author Stephen Covey said it’s like taking the time to sharpen your ax. The longer you hack at a tree with a dull instrument, the more it dulls and the longer it takes. When we take a step back from our work in order to refill our pitchers, we experience something unexplainable, a sort of rebirth that can only be achieved through rest. Remember where we left our farmer? He was sitting in his rocking chair on his back porch looking out over his fields as he REFILLED his tank so that he could go out again the next day and do it all again. He knew the secret was to stop for just a moment and simply be. Can you imagine yourself doing like the farmer and intentionally inserting a pause of joyful rest and celebration into your life? When we seek the truest and deepest level of human fulfillment, prioritizing time to be refilled is non-negotiable.
The Difference
If we go back to the farmer’s back porch, the question we must now ask ourselves is what constitutes “refilling” activities? Does it mean you must go find a porch with a rocking chair and a western view of a corn field? While that does sound mighty appealing, not exactly. As I’ve considered this question in my own life, I’ve come up with the following guidelines in deciding what is “refilling”:
1. It is not obligatory. If I feel even a hint of obligation, it constitutes as work, which is a great thing but definitely not “refilling”.
2. It may vary. Sometimes what refills my pitcher is going for a hike, sometimes it is taking a nap. I give myself the freedom to change my activity depending on what I perceive my body, mind, and spirit need in the moment.
3. It is free of judgment. I will openly admit that I love movies and I, at times, feel guilty for enjoying them. I often feel the desire to convince the world that I’m incredibly epic, only to realize that if people care about anything more than being epic, it’s being authentic. And sometimes I authentically love Netflix.
“When we seek the truest and deepest level of human fulfillment, prioritizing time to be refilled is non-negotiable.”
Thou Shalt Rest
The Hebrews had a little formula for knowing how much “sabbathing” to do. Essentially it came out to be about 14% of their lives (or one day a week). It’s remarkable how their ratio of work to rest empowered them to face some incredibly difficult obstacles. One person shared a story of the Jews during the Holocaust and how they fought to continue honoring the Sabbath even while in captivity. These devout Jews went so far as to celebrate in latrines and bathrooms so as not to be disturbed by their Nazi brutalizers. However, once the Nazis surmised that it was adherence to the Sabbath that empowered them to not lose their spirits, the Nazi captors did everything they could to disrupt the Jews’ day of rest, even going so far as to withhold food from them on that day. One Nazi soldier wrote to a commanding officer, “We have learned that if we can disturb the Sabbath of the Jews, they will then lose all their confidence and their hope.”
There is something mysteriously powerful that occurs when we break the mold of our rest-deprived society. We hold the power to once again become master over the beast of exhaustion by embracing a healthy life rhythm that circulates between pouring out in fulfilling work and then filling back up. It is a cycle that was never meant to be broken and, when honored, will yield incredible results. Can I challenge you to give it a try? Don’t be like the Coskey’s broken water pipe. There is a better way to pour out your life’s energy, a way that will leave you feeling both fulfilled and refilled (and $2,500 richer). Regardless of whether your productivity increases or you’re able to accomplish more by resting more (which I do believe will happen), I guarantee your mind, body, and spirit will begin to sing a beautiful song to the world that perhaps has never been sung before. You will discover the irreplaceable wonders of a life that is lived in harmony with the natural rhythms we were created to embrace.
So go ahead and pour out, enjoy, and fill’er back up.