Rest and Play
My jaw feels tight today. Not tightly closed like a closed fist, but tightly “set,” braced, rigid. It feels sore.
I don’t know why—I was only walking my son to school. We were talking about cigarettes. He wanted to know “if they kill people, why do they even make them.”
I was talking with my 8-year-old son. Why did I feel braced and anxious, like I was going into battle? I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the conversation...
I’m trying now to let my jaw relax. Relaxing is not as easy as it sounds. It takes time for tension to thaw. As I consciously release the muscles around my jaw, I notice my breath starting to move more freely through my body. I realize I was holding my breath.
My mind all of a sudden jumps to my two oldest sons. This weekend I watched them play jazz in the basement of a music building at NYU. It was just them and a few other students. No one was watching but me. They weren’t playing for anything or anyone external. They were just playing. Because they wanted to.
As I watched, I felt so proud. Not because my sons are good at music, but because they have the courage to pursue and make space for what they want. Not what they “should” want. Not what will get them attention or praise. They are driven by something infinitely more powerful and sustaining than any of that—they are driven by love. I could see it and hear it in their music as they played. I could feel it. Love.
What could make a father more proud?
As their dad, I can boil most of what I’ve tried to teach these boys over the past 19 years down to two things: rest, and play.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” “Have you taken a break lately?” “Can you add some margin to your schedule?” “You know, all this practicing won’t matter if you don’t give your body and brain time to rest in between...”
“Have fun!” “Music should be fun!” “Are you having fun??” “You know, all of this music is pointless if you’re not enjoying it.” “You know, true creativity comes from a state of play, not pushing...”
Rest, and play. It’s what life is made of. A series of waves — creative activity, and rest.
Think of a child. That’s their whole life. Rest, and play. Wake up, find something interesting to do, do it 100%, conk out, wake up and start again. Rest, and play.
Everything in life moves in these waves. The sunlight that is hitting my eyes right now—it arrives as tiny waves, and it moves as a whole in 24-hour cycles. The chirping of the birds—their sound arrives as tiny waves, and each chirp comes as part of a rhythmic cycle. Light, dark. Sound, silence.
So what am I doing?
Why am I so braced and anxious? Why am I holding so much tension and rigidity in my body? Where are the waves?
Actually, I feel like a hypocrite, or a martyr—always trying to help my kids to rest and play... meanwhile I am constantly working. When I’m not working, I’m thinking about work. Worrying about money. Worry, and work. Worry, and work.
Where is the rest? Where is the play?
Everything I do, I tell myself, I do to create a safe home for my family (myself included) to be able to rest, and play. I tell myself that all of this work is for them. But the terrifying reality is that children don’t follow where their parents say—they follow where their parents go.
Where am I leading my children? Where am I leading myself?
I’m glad my sons are able to play, but it may not be all thanks to me. In fact, if I keep treating myself the way I have, my sons are likely to turn out the same—in their 40s, wondering why they can’t even have a simple conversation with their 8-year-old child on the way to school without being tied in knots, braced for danger, holding their breath.
Good or bad, I am somewhat responsible for what my children believe about life, and how they live. But the truth is that they are also teaching me. I have a lot to learn from my children about life.
So rather than making “learn to rest” a new obligation to add to my list—one which I beat myself up in order to achieve “for the sake of my children”—I must choose to pursue rest for myself. Because I want to. I’m ready to do that.
Anyway, what good has come to me from 46 years of bracing and gripping—from constantly deferring rest and play? If I’m honest, I’d say that most of the good in my life has come during periods where I was too tired to hold on any longer. Momentarily, I let go, and something true and alive flowed in.
That’s how the breath works. It’s how life works.
And that’s a critically important way to reframe the word “work”: Breath works. Life works. They happen—from my first day to my last—without my ever needing to make them happen.
The “work” I’ve always viewed as mine to do—to make things happen, to get results—is actually not my job.
My job—my work—is to rest, and play.
My fear is that if I make rest and play my work, I’ll never work. Nothing will get done. My family will lose our home—not just our house, our entire foundation. But that is an old fear—from long before I had kids, a wife, or a house.
But what if my work is to rest, and play?
“Well, that just sounds irresponsible. If everyone was to take on that definition of work, nothing would ever get done...”
But why would anyone ever stop working if their “work” was such a wonderful, natural rhythm—of doing what feels most alive with all their heart, body, and soul, then resting deeply until they’re ready to do it again? Would that kind of life really lead to nothing ever getting done?
Think of the greatest things that have ever gotten done by people. Rest and play weren’t deferred—they were the foundation.
When we play, we open. When we are open, Life flows through us.
The same is true when we rest. Life is always flowing through us when we’re open.
So what happens when we defer rest and play—when we brace, grip, and strive instead? We close. When we close, Life flows around us, not through.
Picture a world where everyone enters into a natural rhythm of rest and play. Now picture one where rest and play are deferred, and replaced by endless striving. The second one seems awfully familiar. But we’re being invited to the first.
Today my work is to play. I will do my work with all of my heart, body, and soul. I will trust the results to Life. And at the end of the day, I will rest deeply, knowing that today I did my work.