For a while I have been looking forward to my wisdom tooth surgery, as the recovery period would have provided a convenient excuse to avoid all responsibilities and hardships for one week. All the hours spent close to burnout during the year would be worth this period of doing nothing productive, of letting go and fully relaxing. Yet when the week came and went, it turned out to be pitiful; I failed to write, eat and exercise, was frequently disturbed by distractions and spent an absurd amount of time mindlessly scrolling the internet. I realised, to my surprise, that even in rest, change and challenges were necessary, that too much order was a parasite that stunted growth, and while rest is necessary, too much is pathological. So I began to voluntarily work and set expectations for myself like I would during my working days, and immediately it felt right.

From Dr Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life:

“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”