Why am I so Bad at Resting?

One thing I have had the privilege of doing during this ‘stay-at-home’ time has been to talk with a wide array of people. A good chunk of my time has been spent simply listening to people tell their stories. In some form or another, everyone has talked about what they are doing to fill time. Now granted, not everyone is seeing their free time go up, some people I talk to mention that they actually have more responsibilities now than, say, back in February. But however much free time people may or may not have right now, everyone seems to enjoy talking about what they are doing to fill that free time.
 
This got me thinking, why do we, as humans, have the constant desire to fill up every moment of the day? I am in no way excluding myself from this. I absolutely cannot stand having extended periods of free time with nothing planed or no tasks to accomplish. If I have free time, I create artificial tasks for myself to do. Things like story writing, podcasting, or even translations. Now, some of these could be classified as fun. But for the most part, they are work. Why would I (and other people) voluntarily do work when they don’t have to?? Even things that on the surface should be fun, like video games, we can turn into a chore. Last year I did a play through of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and on more than a few occasions Kristine, my wife, would ask why I was playing if it was making me so angry. I would grunt through gritted teeth that I was having fun and it was relaxing, while at the same time wanting to toss my controller across the room because the stupid gyroscope puzzle shrine is impossible, WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SUCH A THING NINTENDO!!!! Deep breath *in* and *out* OK I’m better now. We can even turn watching TV or reading into work. ‘OK if I start now, I can finish this entire season today’ or ‘if I read 7 chapters a day, I can get through the whole series in 2 weeks.’
 
Most of us recognize just how important times of rest or nothingness can be. One of Jesus’ most clear and to the point promises is “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Going further back, one of God’s earliest instructions to the people of Israel was to take regular Sabbaths. Yet when we are presented with times of rest and Sabbath, we do not take advantage of them. We insist on creating tasks to finish and items to cross off a list.  Maybe it has to do with how infrequent times of relaxation are? We feel like we must fit a week’s worth of relaxing activities into one day, which then makes for one over-packed-not-restful-at-all day. Maybe we all have a nagging voice in our heads that makes us feel bad when we are not doing something? I’m sure there is a deep theological discussion here about how this is somehow a reflection of being ‘made in the image of God.’
 
I wish I had an answer to the question, ‘why are we so bad at rest?’ Honestly, if it did, I would have a best-selling book on my hands, and I would be swimming, Scrooge McDuck style, through all the money. But I don’t have an answer. All I can say is that it is a strange and frustrating conundrum. We know we need rest, yet we seemingly actively work to avoid it. Maybe the best thing we can do is toss it to God. Ask God to help us be better at rest. It might be a cliché answer, but in this case, it might be the thing to do. Otherwise we could easily stress ourselves out over not resting properly, thus continuing the ever-vicious cycle.
 

I want to hear from you. How do you rest? Do you find yourself filling your rest time with ‘jobs’ that prevent you from genuinely resting? What ideas do you have to move forward and engage in actual and true rest?