Managing our work and rest

GIVEN the fact that our life is supposed to be a total offering to God out of love for him and for everyone, we need to make sure that we manage our work and rest so that we can go on completely offering ourselves up the end of our life. We should avoid stopping along the way out of tiredness or of being burned out.

We should make sure that we do not work and do so much that we undermine our total self-giving. Even right in the Old Testament we have already been warned about this:

“My son, do not busy yourself with many matters. If you multiply activities you will not go unpunished, and if you pursue, you will not overtake, and by fleeing you will not escape.” (Sirach 11,10)

I’ve always found this passage very enlightening and helpful. It’s true that we have to attend to many things. In fact, there are just too many of them that we can manage within the span of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But it does not mean that we just mindlessly plunge ourselves into them without concern for our rest and balance in life.

Doing so can be fatal to us, both to our body and even to our soul. Let’s remember that we are a unity of body and soul, and what affects one also affects the other. We need to manage our work and rest, such that we neither overwork nor over-rest ourselves.

We have to be aware that when we work, we involve not only the body but also the soul. We involve our physical organism together with its emotional and psychological components. These are factors we need to take into consideration in managing our work.

We should try not to over-exert ourselves when we work nor to over-react to certain events, unless circumstances require it. In fact, we should try to avoid getting over-excited even with the good things that we are doing, because that would unfairly deplete our energies at the expense of other activities we also need to do, and lead us to stress and tension.

When, for example, we work hard and later find it hard to pray or to carry out even the basic duties of family life, then we can be sure that we are doing things wrongly. When we are active in the office but dead at home, something is definitely wrong.

Nowadays, many are the possibilities of us getting so carried away by our work or some other activities that we fall into some form of obsession and addiction. In that state of mind, we cannot think properly and our sense of priorities would go haywire.

A certain amount of detachment is always necessary to keep some balance and stability in our life. That detachment will help us manage our energies so that we can go the distance of our whole day and of all our responsibilities in their proper priority.

In the end, what we need to do is to be with Christ always, who said, “Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” (Mt 11,28)