relearning rest
Our obsession with extracting the greatest future value out of our time blinds us to the reality that, in fact, the moment of truth is always now — that life is nothing but a succession of present moments, culminating in death, and that you’ll probably never get to a point where you feel you have things in perfect working order.
—Four Thousand Weeks (135-136)
I am still learning how to rest for rest’s sake. Rather than to rest for some future benefit.
When I worked a full-time job during my time in New York, the weekend was a way to recharge myself for the workweek. I was lucky to work a sane 40-hour workweek in my job — while many of my peers would work 50-70 hours/week. But my workweeks were pretty emotionally intense. I loved what I was doing, so I viewed the weekends as a means to recharge for the workweek. “On the weekends, I rest and do things I like to do so that I can be productive at my job during the workweek.”
Writing these words now makes me want to hurl. I thought of rest as a means to work. That isn’t rest.
And then the pandemic shifted my values.
I began to look at work as a means to rest. Work gave me the means to spend time on things that I enjoy.
When my work went fully remote, I worked wherever I wanted. I worked in Bishop, St George, and even Fontainebleau so I could climb during my free time. Life no longer became about spending every moment being productive for some future goal (which would postpone my fulfillment to a time that never arrives). Life became about doing what fulfills me today, regardless of whether it benefits my later fulfillment.
Most of my outdoor climbing happened on the weekends, so I’d usually feel physically exhausted (yet fulfilled) on Mondays. My Mondays-Thursdays started to become my “rest periods”, while my weekends remained intense from a physical standpoint.
This was a huge 180 from my life in New York. Rather than feeling exhausted from work, I’d feel exhausted from climbing. And rather than resting on the weekends, I rested during the workweek.
I’m proud of this shift.
And yet, I still think I’m learning how to rest.
Rest days are for more than just climbing harder
There’s a saying in climbing that good climbers know how to rest well. I started to really practice rest days in 2022, after 3 finger injuries in 2021 from overtraining.
Rest days were great! I continued to send harder and not injure myself.
But then I started to notice my own reasons for doing rest days solely to climb better. Again, I was resting for performance’s sake — this time performance was for my climbing rather than my work. Even the way I phrase it implies that it's another item on my todo list: "I'm going to do a rest day."
…leisure no longer feels leisurely. Instead, it often feels like another item on the todo list.
—Four Thousand Weeks (144)
I’m not bagging on rest days. I encourage climbers who overtrain to take more rest days because usually overtraining holds them back from sending routes they want to send.
However, I am more aware of how my performance mindset around rest gets in the way of rest being valuable in and of itself.
Again, rest shouldn’t be just for climbing. Rest is for me to be who I am outside of climbing.
I wrote in my 2022 Year in Review that not making climbing your full identity makes you a better climber:
Some counterintuitive insight that’s helped me get better at climbing: don’t make climbing my full identity. Lean into my other interests. Devoting time to other things I enjoy (my partner, my family, dancing, writing, my work) means I won’t climb all the time, which means I rest, which means my body will be physically ready to perform at its peak when I climb.
I would now add that being a better climber isn’t the reason I should lean into my other interests. The point of leaning into my other interests is to lean into my other interests! These things matter to me, so I spend time on them.
And more importantly, being a better climber isn’t the main reason I practice rest. I rest because I want to rest.
I’m learning how to slow down
My partner loves to rest. She’s always reminding me to slow down. Be here.
Do you know how people say taking shrooms will help you turn inward and confront your current struggle? I recently took shrooms at a show and it brought out how tired I was. I was so tired when I peaked. Literally yaaaaaawning while waiting in line for water.
I realized I was tired because I was ceaselessly striving in my life. I was immediately rushing into winning my next consulting project after getting laid off from my last job of four years and not taking the time to grieve. I’m always planning my next climbing trip and forgetting to take the time to celebrate my last send. The psilocybin told me the same thing my partner often tells me. Slow down. Be here.
Rest days are a way for me to slow down and be here. I slow down in my climbing, now. And I’m trying not to “BE IN THE MOMENT” in all caps at all times because if I’m telling myself to be in the moment every moment, I’m actually not in the moment, and am using the moment for some future gain.
To try to live in the moment implies that you’re somehow separate from “the moment,” and thus in a position to either succeed or fail at living in it. For all its chilled-out associations, the attempt to be here now is therefore still another instrumentalist attempt to use the present moment purely as a means to an end, in an effort to feel in control of your unfolding time.
—Four Thousand Weeks (140)
This whole September has been a reset month. I trained hard last May to August to send my hardest boulder in Squamish. And I did it! So instead of moving on to the next, this month, I set zero expectations on my climbing goals. Instead, I set an intention to have fun and make space this month. I still climbed this month, but climbing wasn’t taking up most of my headspace (as it often is when I’m on a climbing trip). I surfed with my partner twice. I even bboyed (breakdanced) again — another form of movement that I used to pour my soul into for over a decade. I picked up a couple of consulting projects, too.
Anyway.
In a similar way that I’ve rediscovered life outside of work post-pandemic, I’m rediscovering rest for rest’s sake.
I still don’t know how to rest properly and I think that’s the point. Rest is what consumes me when I’m not thinking about how to control it or do it perfectly. Rest is an act of submission. I’m letting go.
If you’re in LA this October:
🧤Intro to Crack Climbing @ Stronghold, 10/10 & 10/17, 6:30-8:30pm.
My friend and trad king Gerry is teaching a crack climbing class at Stronghold. Knowing how to climb cracks is necessary if you want to climb multipitch in Yosemite/Squamish/Suicide Rock/anywhere with granite. Or even just want to do trad in general. I’ve really enjoyed my experiences crack climbing!
Sign up here.
🇵🇭 Philippines Climb Night @ The Post, 10/25, 5:30-9:30
I’m helping organize a night at my local gym, The Post, about the climbing scene in Cebu, Philippines. October 25, 5:30-9:30. If you’re in Los Angeles, you should come by. You don’t need to be Filipino, too.
The good folks at Global Climbing Initiative are going to share a bit about the climbing scene in Danao, Cebu. One of the speakers, Al, is a routesetter there.
I’m actually going to climb in Cebu March 2025 with my partner and brother and am incredibly stoked to learn about what the climbing scene is like in the motherland.
This is great! Love the parallels between over-training and over-working. Reminds me of this that I keep coming back to, that I think you might like: https://hurryslowly.co/203-jocelyn-k-glei/