The call to increased productivity echoes in everything from our personal agendas to our professional lives. Workflow software guarantees greater efficiency. Aesthetically-pleasing printables promise a smoother family schedule. Exercise regimens and meal plans offer a streamlined approach to the healthy life we’ve always wanted.
Everywhere we turn, someone or something tells us we can optimize. We can do better. We can be better. We can do more. We can be more.
There’s nothing wrong with using tools and techniques to help us navigate our days wisely. But when our focus becomes self-optimization, we’re likely to miss the mark.
“Your work ethic is only as good as your rest ethic,” says graphic designer Andrew Khatouli, quoted in a recent CT article by Jonathan Chan. In other words, if we’re solely focused on squeezing as much productivity out of ourselves as possible, we’re liable to forget what we are: human.
“A preoccupation with efficiency and optimizing the self can serve to lessen an awareness of our humanity,” writes Chan. “We lose our sense of our being loved into existence by the Creator, of being created in his image, and of needing to be nourished spiritually and emotionally by divine communion.”
May we remember that we were made in the image of God, who created for six days and rested on the seventh. And may we trust his goodness as we create space for our own rest, as well.
