While the Laws Protecting Rest Were Sleeping...

When you look behind you and have lost the fixed point where exhaustion last stood motionless on the precipice of collapse.

No one should ever be this tired.

Societal living has an argument to rationalize almost anything. Not much of a stretch to drive GDP with a zombified labor force held together by bits of bandage, staples, and non-medical grade glue on essential body parts.

Devoid of passion or requisite motivation? Fortification with Prozac or any similar pharmaceutical will suffice. Drink Red Bull and have wiiings. Keep at it—working, organizing, manufacturing, consuming, socializing, networking—until you are too old to move—or die.

I ask myself at what point in life did natural body processes become inconvenient and incompatible with existence?

Maybe I dozed off.

Cold water splashed on my face a few short years ago by a manager who chose a moment alone in the office to tell me that over a 12-hour shift, I probably won’t always have a 30-minute lunch or even a 15-minute coffee break. I later learned that “probably” meant soft code for “often.”

Contravening the legal statute for Working Time Regulations 1998 which advises 11 hours rest within a 24-hour work period, undocumented, unpaid, mandated overtime frequently eclipsed those precious 11 hours when back-to-back shifts were standard. There appeared to be a trend with no visible dissent between the ranks. I wondered what invisible threshold I had crossed where I could be considered more A.I. than biological organism with messy organic needs like rest.

My body broke down first.

Then hairline cracks formed throughout my mind.

I didn’t draw a line in the sand.

I abandoned all desert-like environments and shores, eating and sleeping my depleted reservoir of molecular mortality back to pre-employment level.

Reality Check: Despite evidence to the contrary, there are many whose standard operating procedures, whether at work, home, social circles, etc. will expect more of you than is humanly possible.

Prioritization of rest then becomes a war cry declaration. Undefended ground is subject to siege. There can be no neutrality.

I embark on a new calendar year with three compulsory and binding vows for protective R&R perimeters around my body, mind, and spirit. Accessible for amendments in my favor at any time. Here’s to:-

1. More Rabbit Hole Jumping

I am one of those persons who without a doubt, can enjoy the thrills of traveling down countless rabbit holes. My mind recharges from the abundant stimuli present in new concepts and uninterrupted exploration. A mind electrified through discovery completes the circuit that automatically regenerates my body. Ten minutes in a rabbit hole feels like a twenty-four-hour day. There’s nothing quite like distorting time if needs be, used sparingly or just splurging it all at once, to get that one-of-a-kind ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?’ experience.

The thought of exploring more realities this year is an exciting one, leaving me spoilt for choice with no restrictions regarding travel, finance, or entry-level requirement. I can develop my marketable prowess by taking a free course on how to get book reviews. Immerse in a South African safari setting via a live webcam of Tau Game Lodge or experience Machu Picchu, Peru in 3-D reality with a guide. Learn everyday phrases in Bengali, Mandarin, Creole. Dabble in Wolof. Or pick up an old sketch pad and imagine the first art class has only begun.

After years of formal education with no choice in curriculum, I am the untethered mind-spirit roaming the four corners exactly like someone left the school gate open. As a self-confessed life-long learner, I’ve already started a year full of potentially limitless opportunities that make my entire being tingle and shimmy. Talk about a guaranteed method of restorative lift!

2. Losing Myself in Literature

Stress indicators are unique to each individual. As a bona fide book lover and voracious reader, I struggled last year to complete even enjoyable literary works that I would ordinarily finish in a heartbeat. Off-balance and off-center from various stressors, my diminished reading resulted in an aberration. An annual completed book count so low it had NEVER happened before! As much as I wanted to read, my virtual engine starter would not kick over and rev for long. I heard persons in literary and other creative pursuits say the same.

As the edges of reason and passion return to holistic levels, my reading appetite retraces its palate to pre-pandemic parameters. I will once again be supplementing my personal stock with selections from local libraries,

thrift stores and the much-relished frequent bookstore browse. Even though I read articles and stories online, I‘m a hardcore, an-actual-copy-of-the-book, kind of bibliophile. There’s something about holding it in your hands. Turning the pages. The imperceptible moments of falling into the story, forgetting that I’m holding anything and not even realizing it. Where does body awareness evaporate? How does consciousness teleport into thin pages like that? Why does this not happen in digital formats—at least not for me anyway. Nothing cleanses my being; inspires and ignites, quite like losing myself inside the pages of a good book. A leisure activity that also helps me to be a more understanding, insightful, compassionate, and chillaxed human.

The legendary Marcus Garvey recommended reading one book a week so that by the end of a year, 52 books have been read. By the end of five years 260 books.

“Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden.” – Marcus Mosiah Garvey

The added positives include building vocabulary and improving my skill as a writer. Not to mention stealing my heart and mind (only for beneficial clandestine purposes.)

As it stands, I already have a TBR (to-be-read) pile to lose oneself in with autobiographical works, self-help, fiction, science, philosophy, and more.

3. Manifesting Manifesting MANIFESTING

An indescribable wondrous feeling when it happens as a direct result of intention setting. Is it equivalent to having a superpower? It certainly feels like it!

This is by far the most joyous and delicious 'resolution revolution' I anticipate seeing through the year.

Whether you subscribe to the research that states humans have between 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts per day or 6,200 thoughts per day, that’s still a LOT of thinking.

The concept of thoughts manifesting to things is not a novel one. From renowned motivational speakers like Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and Eckhart Tolle, self-help author and lecturer Bob Proctor also said, “Thoughts become things. If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hand.”

But how much thinking is spent on what I want, as opposed to what I don’t?

The truth?

Last year, not enough.

In life, I’ve experienced those vortexes of mind focus where what I envisioned felt like it was being peeled from my consciousness into the current field of view. From intangible to tangible, there it was. The accommodation. The money. The right resource. The person.

What does it do for a person to know that they can do that?

It gives an empowered state that is a timely reminder to keep creating beautiful realities, full of expanse and lusciousness. The types of manifestation that get people excited and are contagious, filled with limitless possibilities.

What if I smiled at a stranger in the street and they smiled back? And what if the same stranger with that good smiling energy walked slower and passed by a florist. He decided to buy two dozen pink roses for his girlfriend (Happy girlfriend: check.) This purchase helped put the shop’s owner in the financial clear. No longer did he worry about losing his business. Filled with relief, the tightness in the shopkeeper’s chest vanished. He doesn’t need to call the doctor for an appointment which leaves a time slot free for a mother to bring in her infant son whose chest infection is caught and treated in the nick of time.

A straightforward perhaps pedantic example sure, but if one masters the basics, what’s next?

Anything!

A small selfless soul once said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

Thanks to the hardships of the year gone, I’ve accrued a LOT of stones.

Rocks actually.

Rocked to my core by the deaths of family members and friends. By inhumane treatment from one sovereign nation to another. The devastation of unnatural, natural global disasters. I’ve seen enough to know that I’ll be hurling massive projectiles into the water this year, to create as many ripples as I possibly can.

I am very appreciative that you read this story! I put a great deal of time and effort into it so that means so much to me.

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