#42 - The Art of Rest, Part 2: with Wisdom from Yuval Noah Harari, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, and writer Derek Thompson

In his NYT best selling book, Sapiens, celebrated author Yuval Noah Harari explains how the unprecedented leap humans made to the top of the food chain over such a relatively short period in history created psychological consequences that we continue to experience today. While most top predators like lions and sharks had millions of years to cultivate calm and confidence, our poll volt to the top dog position happened only about 100,00 years ago, which has kept our psychology hardwired for anxiousness, always at the ready to stave off any threats to the stability of our position. Perhaps its this biological factor that has contributed to our habit of wanting to be always “on”. Buddhist monk and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh calls this human tendency to be always on, “the habit energy of struggle”.

Yet there’s more to this habit than ancient Sapien history.

In the United States, our need to be "always on" is amplified by the legendary American Dream, this idea that anyone has an equal opportunity to achieve prosperity and upward mobility simply by working hard. We assume that hard work will make us richer, particulary in the material sense. So the more we keep our nose to the grindstone, the more material wealth we’ll obtain – the dream house, the dream job, the dream car, etc. 

And because the majority of us haven’t yet got the memo that being materially successful doesn’t equate to happiness, we’ve become workaholics, stuck in an endless cycle of working hard to obtain the next level of material riches, only to realize that there’s always someone ahead of us, no matter if you’re Warren Buffet or Mark Cuban. And so we continue ignorantly working towards that next goalpost.

Yet There’s something even more subtle that keeps us “always-on” and guilty of resting. And that’s this idea that your job shouldn’t be just a job, but a “calling”, and that calling is the centerpiece of your identity. In other words, as entrepreneurship  and tech innovation continue to enable more of us to make a living by doing what we love, we’ve adopted a mentality that the meaning of life can only be found tightly bundled in work. We’ve therefore  catapulted work to almost a godlike status and in doing so, we’ve normalized workaholism while simultaneously rejecting relaxation.  

Now more than ever before, humans are defining themselves by the work they do, not by leisure time, hobby time, vacation time, or  family time.

And interestingly this type of workaholism is best represented by folks at the highest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. As Atlantic writer Derek Thompson so deftly put it: The best-educated and highest-earning Americans, who can have whatever they want, have chosen the “office” for the same reason that devout Christians attend church on Sundays: It’s where they feel most themselves.  So why rest when we feel most at ease when we’re working? 

--

For more from Host Pooja Mottl:  www.PoojaMottl.com

Podcast Producer: www.Go-ToProductions.com

Twitter: @PoojaMottl

Instagram: @TheCalmandFreePodcast and @PoojaMottl  

LinkedIn: @PoojaMottl

Special Thanks to Kris Kosach of the TPR Podcast for lending her VO for our Podcast Intro!