A Day Of Rest

I was raised in a family who always acknowledged and respected Sundays as being a day of rest, and a day dedicated to quality family time. For much of my childhood, Sundays were regularly spent getting up and going to church with my parents and my sister, followed by a delicious Sunday roast lunch and an afternoon spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house, before my parents and my sister would return home together for Sunday dinner, whilst watching some wholesome family television shows together. Yep, those were the days. How I miss them so. I don't know whether it was the era itself, or the fact that I was a child, or even a combination of both, but it really felt like the world was so much more relaxed and family orientated back then. Shops and most businesses were all closed, with the only places open being a few petrol stations, corner delicatessens, and fast food outlets. Nowadays, if the shops are closed for just one day at all, such as for a public holiday, people carry on like the the world is going to end. Why have we gone from being a civilization who once viewed Sundays from exactly the same perspective as my parents taught me, being a day of rest and a family day, to becoming just another typical, average day of the week? Why is there all of a sudden this urgent need for clothes shops to be open on a Sunday? Why is there an urgent need to have any non-essential businesses, shops, and services open on a Sunday? The simple answer; money and greed! Corporations and certain business owners are so desperate for the dollars, they couldn't care less about rest days or family days. To them, life is all about profits, profits, and more profits, even if this comes at the expense of denying people the opportunity for family time and a day of rest. Now I'm not going to deny the convenience factor to many non-essential businesses being open on a Sunday, which is especially helpful to those who perhaps work full time Monday to Saturday, or even Monday to Friday, as it allows them that extra day to get shopping done, but why can't shops be open later during the week for flexibility instead?

Okay, perhaps I am old fashioned, but a couple of things I am a massive advocate for are family time and adequate rest time. Just because society insists we keep up to speed with what they want, and how they believe we should all live our life, doesn't necessarily make it right. In fact, following society's ways lead to destruction and unhappiness, more often that not! In the world of entrepreneurship, we hear a lot about hustling. What that is all about is continually working non-stop basically until you achieve the success you desire, including the need for constant late nights and early mornings, in order to get more done. It means pushing yourself to the absolute limit to get the actions done needed to earn success within your business, as fast as possible. Any business owner would love success within their business as fast as possible, why why wouldn't they? The journey to success is going to include hard work, perseverance, patience, commitment, determination, dedication, and resilience, that's a given. We also know that the journey to success is going to require us to make sacrifices also, but we need to be careful we don't achieve success at a heavy cost. Deny it all you want, but the human body requires adequate rest each day, in order to properly recharge and re-energize. That rest comes via sleep, of course, but not just some amount sleep, from a proper night's sleep. A proper night's sleep should be in the range of around 7 to 9 hours each night, which is the recommended amount of sleep that recharges our mind and body effectively, keeping us healthy and boosting our immune system in the process. When we talk about hustling, and sacrificing sleep due to late nights and early mornings, all in a bid to gain success as fast as possible, we are in fact doing ourselves more harm than good.

Trying to survive on 4 to 6 hours of sleep in night, especially for an extended period of time, is doing us no favors whatsoever. Where we believe we are at least getting more work done, in being awake for longer, and where believe we are going to reach our goals faster, and where we believe that coffees will do the trick in keeping us awake and alert, we are in fact doing great harm to our health. Why? Because it's not natural for the body. The body needs a decent amount of sleep, every night. The longer we short change ourselves on sleep, the weaker our immune system becomes, whilst we also open up doors to other health risks such as obesity, diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Whilst we may be hastening the process to achieve success, through hustling and sacrificing sleep, we are potentially reducing the years we will live to enjoy that success. Not only that, but in operating on just 4 to 6 hours of sleep each night, our body is naturally not going to perform at it's full potential either. Our mind is not as focused and clear as it can be, whilst our body is less energized and effective as it can be also. We may not see it, because we start to know no better, but we don't work as productively as we could be if we were coming off the back of a decent night's sleep each night. Sleep is one thing, but having a break and time with the family are another. If we are spending 6 days a week hustling, even after having decent 8 hour sleeps each night, our body still needs a mental break from work, and time to rest. As difficult as it may be, we just need to detach ourselves from our work, and spend the day focusing on something different. It may be some time spent doing some hobbies, visiting family or friends, enjoying the outdoors, watching or participating in some sport, whatever it may be, it should be something other than work. What we should prioritize on Sundays is our family. It is a day where we can really maximize the time we are blessed with to spend with our loved ones.

Why bury ourselves in the ground spending every day working our butt off to achieve the success we desire, when we can achieve the same success working just as hard for 6 days of the week, and allocating each Sunday to spend time with those we love? We allow ourselves that one day each week to just unwind, relieve our minds of the stress and workload of our job or business, and get to spend time with our partner, our children, and maybe our parents. That's success in itself! For most people, success is about money though. If they can achieve that success as fast as possible, and be raking in the dollars, they believe that will be the turning point in their life. That's when they can finally start to concentrate on their family and other things in life. Most of the time though, such people achieve this success and wealth, but keep wanting more and more. The thing is, we will always have the opportunity to make money for ourselves, but we can never regain time lost that could've been spent with those whom we love. Learn to relax and unwind! Understand that there are way more important things in life than work and money. Sundays give each and every one of us the perfect opportunity to make memories, to spend time relishing every precious moment we have with our partner, our children, and our parents, because it's guaranteed there will come a day that we won't be given that privilege any longer. Our parents will pass away, our children will grow up and move out, and if we have chosen to spend our Sundays working instead of having spent it with our family, we are not going to have fond memories of those Sundays spent in the office, we are going to have nothing but regrets from having wasted precious times we could've spent with those we love. Don't lose focus on your goals and the work you do, we know they are of great importance, but success isn't going to disappear for choosing Sundays to be spent resting and enjoying quality time with your family. Success isn't about money and work, it's about satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment in all areas of your life, and that includes family and health. Make Sundays a day of rest, as you take some time out for yourself to spend unwinding and enjoying the company of those you love. We each deserve that one day a week to relax and spend quality time with our family.

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