Sabbath

Not a nice to have, a need to have

It’s not something I necessarily wanted to do.

But, I came to the realization that I needed to do it. Rest. I had been running hard for as long as I could remember. Working hard, grinding, achieving, completing, and accomplishing were values that were instilled in me as a young child. My parents immigrated to the United States and landed in Chicago and started to work. They worked hard for our family, our extended family, and even for the community at large. If one of us was going to succeed it was important that we created spaces for everyone to experience success.

But the byproduct of this kind of hurried, constantly on-the-move existence was the absence of rest. True rest. The kind of rest that helps you reset. The rest actually has to be worked at. We had rest. We even had vacations. But vacations seemed like work. We had a list of things to do, see, experience, and exhaustion met us at the end of each day.

True rest was absent. Just a few months before I turn 38 I am feeling the …