Shipulski On Design

When the ocean gets tired from holding its water up to make high tide, it lets go and relaxes into low tide.  The ocean takes direction from the moon who knows it can’t always be high tide.  This is The Way.

When the earth gets tired from heating up the northern hemisphere it wobbles on its axis and relaxes its northern territories into cooler weather.  And the reduced energy demand in the north frees up energy for the earth to focus on heating up its southern hemisphere.  Taking direction from the  sun, the earth knows it cannot always be hot in the north or the south.  And it know it doesn’t have enough energy to make it hot in the north and south at the same time. And it knows it can’t be lazy all year and let it be cold in both hemisheres year round. It’s natural for winter to follow summer and for the hemispheres to be out of phase.  The earth and sun know this.  It’s natural for them.

Bears have their fun in spring summer and fall.  They are all-in on eating, taking care of young bears, and making new ones.  After three seasons of fun and games, bears know they need to hunker down and rest for the winter.  That is how it is with bears and how it will always be. It is natural bear behavior. And it works.

When you work out hard, your body knows it needs to rest the next day.  It knows it needs to recover from the elevated stress of the workout so it gives you feedback that it’s important to do less the following day. There’s nothing wrong with that.  In fact, there’s everything right with that.   It’s natural and it works.

And there are natural rest cycles at work,  After a full week of planning meetings, people need to downshift into work that is less taxing and gives their bodies time to process the plans.  This is not weakness, it’s natural.

And there are even natural hibernation cycles at work in the form of vacations and holidays.  Like with bears, our bodies need (and deserve) deep rest.  And just bears don’t check their email when hibernating, neither should we.  Taking time for deep rest is not irresponsible or wasteful, it’s natural

Without a trough there can be no crest.  And without rest there can be no high performance.  This, too, is natural.

Image credit — Geoff Henson

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