Okay, But Are You Resting?

This was originally part of my post about burnout and going overboard with your journey to FIRE. There is so much to say on the subject of rest and its importance at any age and/or stage of reaching financial independence.

It’s a good reminder for myself as well. In between my full-time job, side flipping, and We Want Guac stuff I don’t tend to give myself much time off. This week I have a family friend over for a visit and she requested we stay in today; that unexpected time to relax is exactly the reason why I could turn back to my article drafts and start typing away again.

Most days it feels like I have to go, go, go 24/7, which I attribute to still being young. When you’re starting off in your career there’s this assumption/stereotype that you’re full of energy and have no other life obligations. As such, you are expected to bend over backwards if you want to get promotions or otherwise be seen as a good worker. Too many higher-ups in the corporate world want you to stay behind more while, often, working for less. This disparity sees a hand-wavy dismissal because you have to “pay your dues” or “check your ego”.

As a friendly reminder, following these beliefs blindly will ONLY help your employer, not you. It’s also damaging to your future health and wealth prospects, so please take the time of even if it seems antithetical or scary to. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most energetic and eager worker on the planet; you’re still going to need rest.

Rest Should Always Be a Priority

What’s the very first thing most want to do after achieving something great or special? The overwhelmingly answer is “to rest”. What’s the number one thing I was looking forward to after graduating college? Sleeping for a month. If I was a gambler, I’d be willing to bet many folks reaching for financial independence look forward to rest once they reach that goal. We want to sleep in. Take naps. Lose the need for coffee in the morning, and all that jazz.

Sleep that soothes away all our worries. Sleep that puts each day to rest. Sleep that relieves the weary laborer and heals hurt minds. Sleep, the main course in life’s feast, and the most nourishing.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Rest and relaxation is part of most everyone’s ideal life, a fact of life going back centuries. Rest means little/no stress. It means peace. It means being fully prepared for a future of joy. Rest is awesome in the full sense of the word.

Which makes the fact society doesn’t get enough of it all the more abhorrent.

My friend at Accidentally Retired put this best recently: “You can’t sleep less than 7 hours and not have it be to your detriment.” I have some strong opinions about sleep, but “sleep” and “rest” do not quite mean the same thing. There’s quite a lot of overlap between the two, to the point where they’re synonymous. And in this world we live in where you get little of either? It makes sense they’ve morphed into meaning the same thing.

It’s freaking hard to “have it all”. It’s hard to stick with a 40-hour workweek if you want to have a larger paycheck or better career opportunities. Add to that family obligations, socializing, relationships, hobbies, household chores, and networking on top of that and you have little, if any, time to stop and freaking chill. It’s a pipe dream to be able to rest, at this point.

I don’t know how to say this in a punchy way: rest shouldn’t be something to dream about or aspire to.

Because Rest is LITERALLY Nonnegotiable

Rest is a crucial part of life itself; no mammal has completely managed to escape it.

Lack of sleep alters your behavior for the worse. Your emotions get wacky and your immune system grows too fatigued to ward off the wimpiest diseases. Just one night of sleep deprivation – really, just one – can result in microsleep sessions the day after. That’s when your brain completely checks out of your environment for 30 seconds of rest; your eyes won’t close, but that doesn’t matter when you’re totally unaware of your surroundings. Imagine microsleeping behind the wheel of a car or cooking on the stove. 30 seconds is plenty of time for things to go tragically wrong.

If you’re not getting enough sleep on the regular, that is an emergency. You need to rectify that ASAP. I don’t care how impossible that might seem; your alternative is a slew of health issues that’ll leave you living in misery, assuming you don’t die quickly. Chronic illnesses can lead to disability, which, among other things, reduces your ability to make top dollar in a world built for the able-bodied.

And therein lies an impossible choice: prioritize health today, or prioritize stability.

Compare American standards of vacation days, PTO, and sick time policies to the rest of the developed world, like Europe’s; apples to apples, you’ll see a startling lack of interest towards giving Americans the space to rest. For once, I’m not going to bring up a history of Puritan values or other historical anecdotes into explaining this away. The way I see it, this disregard for rest doesn’t come from any long-term proof of concept.

It’s from the toxic underbelly of hustle culture. It’s the unspoken dogma behind “Time for more adventure” and “Catch flights, not feelings”. You’re urged to “work to the point of sacrificing your health because that’s less important than earning wealth and visiting exotic places. Experiencing financial anxiety over this messed-up belief system? Simply avoid thinking about it or working on it. Would the rest of the world really steer you wrong, hunty?

American Society Loves Denying Rest…

There are way too many millionaire/billionaire entrepreneurs out there who advocate for losing sleep and taking zero time for rest and relaxation in favor of vague things like “getting to the top”. There are countless films and books and TV shows where you root for the person who’s hardworking because they’re working several jobs at once; it’s endemic from your hardcore heist sagas to kid-friendly Disney (look at Tiana, getting by on 3 seconds of sleep! Look how she’s rewarded for it!) And it’s celebrated because, hey! Capitalism demands it so! Do something different from the unwashed masses and NEVER REST/COLLAPSE FROM UTTER EXHAUSTION!!!

There’s little acknowledgment that it’s a societal disaster because there’s no easy, simple answer to fixing it. It’s a hell of a lot easier to fix things on an individual level if it’s a fortuitous individual. Then their overworking might give them a leg up instead of sending them spiraling. Hence, why financial independence is so alluring to those who want to rest already.

Like it or not, rest is nonnegotiable. I mean LITERALLY nonnegotiable. Do you really think evolution would be cool with practically all life forms being unconscious – and therefore vulnerable to danger – for any period of time if they could help it? You can’t even avoid those microsleep sessions after denying yourself enough ZZZs. The fact that evolution can’t find a way around sleep makes it obvious there’s literally no replacement for the need for rest.

… To the Detriment of Health

Rest is one of the first things to skimp out of when modern life gets overwhelming, financial independence or no. It seems the easiest choice to cut when you don’t want to bring the scissors to quality time with loved ones or more hours banked at work. Unless some major shift takes place, it’s going to keep being hard to feel comfortable in resting. It’s hard enough to reach a comfortable income level without prior connections or resources, let alone rest when doing so is a new luxury. Make no mistake, rest is a luxury; it means you have enough disposable income to not need to generate pay every possible moment.

Almost everything in modern life – beyond going to the library and maybe outdoor parks – is going to cost money to participate in. “I’m working” is one of the few universally accepted excuses to get out of spending your hard-earned cash; “I’m resting/sleeping” is not one of them, self-care advocacy be damned.

There’s a myriad of excuses for not getting enough sleep: too busy working. Too busy being a parent to a newborn, or just a child in general. Too busy falling down a rabbit hole of Instagram or TikTok reels and clicking on the next video at 2 in the morning because you’re not about to face a dark room and existential dread that creeps in as you attempt to pass out for another monotonous day…

All of these are valid reasons. But they’re not healthy and incredibly unsustainable.

Can Financial Independence Cure the Need for Rest?

As I’ve said before, being able to afford rest is one of the many tempting reasons to aim for financial independence. Once you do, you’ll suddenly have a minimum of 40 hours a week given back to you. Forever. To those that do reach that goal, I salute you.

For the rest, understand that even a partial goal completion can do wonders. I’m at a quarter million dollars currently, which gives me some expanded career options as it relates to rest. While I’m still far from my ultimate goal, I have more than enough cushion to silence any feelings of obligation to overwork myself. I could go multiple years without any income at all; should I find myself with a future 50% pay cut or a 50% reduction in my investments, I’d still feel okay with prioritizing my 8 hours of sleep. This, however, only works if I prioritize rest while reaching for financial independence. Sleep is one thing; rest is another. I need to hold myself accountable more for getting rest while I’m awake. My mind sure could use some relaxation from walks in the park or quiet people-watching.

Plus, who knows? The more folks who join the financial independence movement and concentrate on rest, the more that can help others in their circles and beyond. It’s far from a much-needed societal reset, sure. But it’s at least a start, and all good things need to start somewhere.

Cover image credit: Dan Gold via Unsplash