Are you succumbing to violence, right at your desk?

At the end of a week, I often find that I've worked, in one way or another, every single day of that week.

In general, I hardly ever take breaks, breaks are hard for me. It's when I take a break or take a vacation that I feel most out of control and that leads me straight to anxiety. This piece by Thomas Merton, which I  have written about before, makes it perfectly clear, he writes,

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

It takes discipline to not burn yourself out in a culture that rewards 16 hour working days.

Since the start of the pandemic, I've said many times that this is a marathon and not a sprint, mostly to remind myself to keep a steady, healthy pace.

I want to invite you to keep a healthy pace with me. So, let's do two things this week, two practices: First, resolve to stop working at a set point each day, and second, spend at least one day a week disconnected from email, messages and social media.

Are you in? Let me know.

Get skin in the game, pace yourself.

Pierre