The Revolution is a Nap
There was a time when motion felt like purpose. Do more. Fix more. Carry more. Many of us mistook exhaustion for contribution and urgency for meaning. It looked like service. It felt like duty. It ran on caffeine and the low self-esteem that comes from needing to be useful to feel worthy.
Somewhere along the way, we called it virtue. We called it strength. But what it really was was depletion dressed up as devotion.
This year, I learned a lot about service and what it really is. I learned that people notice this about you—and they rely on it. They rely on your genuine desire to be helpful. They make you feel guilty for not picking up their slack, as if it’s your fault for not getting people to work harder for their own good. So I started doing something different. Less. I gave myself back time. It opened my eyes to how many lives are built around tending to everyone else.
Many of us were raised to be helpful, to hold the line, to keep the plates spinning. Add in real family pressures, partners with mental health struggles, new children, and the reflex to care becomes identity. Depletion gets praised. Martyrdom gets framed as love. The exhaustion becomes constant. And then comes the anger about that exhaustion. Not fireworks. A steady heat that says this is not sustainable.
Refusal becomes rebellion. Refuse to participate. Trust that if you don’t do it, it will get done—and if it doesn’t, the world won’t crumble. Cut what does not grow you. Let anger compost into boundaries. Let the calendar breathe. Let the phone go dark at night. Drink water first. Give a yes that means yes. Say “no” like it’s a complete sentence.
Culture keeps saying “hyah, hyah.” But you can choose steadiness. Let others sprint for the next badge; you can walk. Finish one thing at a time. Let problems ripen for a day before deciding they’re yours to solve. Trust the quiet work of recovery and the slow work of clarity.
Calibrate yourself. Remember that care doesn’t have to mean collapse. That worth is not measured by motion. That rebellion can sound like silence or look like staying home.
Maybe the loudest rebellion left is the quiet one—doing less, resting without guilt, refusing false urgency. Stopping the habit of calling exhaustion a contribution. The world may call it apathy. We can call it evolution.
This is what reckoning feels like—not fireworks, but the long exhale after decades of clenching.
The revolution is a nap.
Exercise: The Practice of Enough
Name your breaking point.
Write one moment this week when you felt that steady, quiet anger at being stretched too thin. What triggered it?Trace the belief.
Underneath that anger, what belief keeps you from stopping? (Example: “If I don’t do it, no one will.” “Rest is lazy.” “They’ll be disappointed.”)Rewrite the rule.
Turn that belief into something truer and kinder. (Example: “If I rest, I return stronger.” “Other people can learn to carry their part.” “My worth isn’t in my output.”)Draw a line.
Identify one small thing you can stop doing this week without apology. Cross it out on your list or calendar.Replace it with recovery.
Fill that space with something that restores you—ten quiet minutes, a walk, a meal you actually sit for, stillness.End with this reflection:
What if balance isn’t found, but built—one refusal at a time?
