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Continuous Rest at Work
Episode 715th April 2022 • PowerPivot • Leela Sinha
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As owners of businesses, as people in charge of departments, as people in management roles, we need to be proactively meeting the needs of our people. And that includes the need for continuous rest at work, for space and time for us to have more original thoughts, to have deeper thoughts, to have more complex thoughts.

Judith Shulevitz's book "The Sabbath World" may be found at this link.

Transcripts

Leela Sinha:

Hi, everyone. So I've been, I've been pretty

Leela Sinha:

isolated during the pandemic deliberately. And by choice and

Leela Sinha:

privilege I have not so far been spending a lot of time out in

Leela Sinha:

places doing things, because out in places means out proximate to

Leela Sinha:

people, and people suddenly got really dangerous. But today, in

Leela Sinha:

the course of running some errands, I walked by the local

Leela Sinha:

branch of my library. And I decided that maybe I should pay

Leela Sinha:

them a quick visit. I grew up in libraries. I literally grew up

Leela Sinha:

in libraries every Saturday, many weekday nights. It was

Leela Sinha:

something I think that my mother could do with me that was not

Leela Sinha:

perplexing. And so we did it a lot. And my family has always

Leela Sinha:

valued learning and education. And so with their value of

Leela Sinha:

learning, and education, and my love of books, a lifelong love

Leela Sinha:

was born. And so when I'm feeling unsettled, when things

Leela Sinha:

don't feel right, when everything seems to be upside

Leela Sinha:

down and backwards, going to a library is soothing, for me. I

Leela Sinha:

know this isn't true for everyone, I have a close friend,

Leela Sinha:

who experienced libraries as places where she was told to

Leela Sinha:

shush and do things like study and not allowed to be curious or

Leela Sinha:

interested or active or excited. And I know that libraries aren't

Leela Sinha:

really all like that anymore. But that was fairly true when we

Leela Sinha:

were growing up and, and I understand why she feels that

Leela Sinha:

way. But my libraries, my library experience was an

Leela Sinha:

experience of refuge, an experience of imagination, an

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experience of possibility, an experience of a way to access

Leela Sinha:

things that were beyond my reach. So I went to the library.

Leela Sinha:

And this branch library is a beautiful little Arts and Crafts

Leela Sinha:

building, on the corner of a major street and a minor street.

Leela Sinha:

In my neighborhood, walking distance, exactly the way one

Leela Sinha:

thinks a small town library should be except this isn't a

Leela Sinha:

small town. It has friendly librarians, several self

Leela Sinha:

checkout stations, tables and lights and places to plug in,

Leela Sinha:

and ranks and ranks books. And one of the books that I stumbled

Leela Sinha:

across in my futile attempt to get something lighthearted is

Leela Sinha:

called "The Sabbath World" by Judith Shulevitz. I promise this

Leela Sinha:

is related to business. So I picked up this book and I

Leela Sinha:

started paging through it because I've been increasingly

Leela Sinha:

engaged with the idea that sabbath that this idea of, of

Leela Sinha:

deliberate, structured, rest is critical to good business. And

Leela Sinha:

that our loss of that over the course of mostly the industrial

Leela Sinha:

revolution, but also other things, has led us to a place as

Leela Sinha:

humanity where we are much less able to do good work in the

Leela Sinha:

right kind of time; we've lost the sense of rightness to

Leela Sinha:

timing, and instead, rightness belongs to the clock. She

Leela Sinha:

explores these ideas in some detail even right in the

Leela Sinha:

beginning of the book, but but I had already been thinking about

Leela Sinha:

them extensively, significantly. And I've also been thinking

Leela Sinha:

about how alarms set containers and containers make things

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possible. Right? Boundaries, make things possibl;e we can do

Leela Sinha:

this because we're not doing that; we can start this because

Leela Sinha:

we stopped that. We can make spaces where we need to make

Leela Sinha:

spaces. I set alarms, not anymore to make sure that I'm

Leela Sinha:

awake, although there's a little bit of that still in there for

Leela Sinha:

me, but mostly to remind me that it's time to start turning

Leela Sinha:

toward my day. I can get caught up in all kinds of cogitation

Leela Sinha:

and ideation and never really turn toward the mechanics of my

Leela Sinha:

day or the things on my calendar, if I don't set an

Leela Sinha:

alarm that says "Okay, let's start turning toward the day."

Leela Sinha:

So that's what my morning alarms usually mean. Let's turn toward

Leela Sinha:

the day.

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It sets a boundary between the liminality of the waking up

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space, of the preparing space, of the showering and praying

Leela Sinha:

space and the concreteness of my day. But even there, my days are

Leela Sinha:

at least 50% thinking; thinking, and dreaming and imagining and

Leela Sinha:

feeling my way into what's coming next. And that's not

Leela Sinha:

because I don't run a business, I do run a business. But because

Leela Sinha:

the kind of business I run relies on my brain having that

Leela Sinha:

space, to do the work that my business calls for. So even,

Leela Sinha:

even in the quotidian existence, there's this demand of my system

Leela Sinha:

and of the system for this spaciousness for this space and

Leela Sinha:

time. And I believe that this is not unique to clergy, who are

Leela Sinha:

often accorded this, even by contract, or to, to academics,

Leela Sinha:

who are often at least accorded a sabbatical time and are not

Leela Sinha:

considered to be quote unquote, "not working" if they're sitting

Leela Sinha:

in their office staring into space with a paper in front of

Leela Sinha:

them, but also, everybody else. Everybody needs to be accorded

Leela Sinha:

this time. Everybody needs to be accorded the space. And when

Leela Sinha:

people are accorded this time and space, things come out of

Leela Sinha:

solution, they percolate out. My father is a chemical engineer.

Leela Sinha:

And when I was maybe in elementary school, maybe middle

Leela Sinha:

school, I learned about flocculants, I learned what the

Leela Sinha:

word flocculant means. A flocculant is usually a chemical

Leela Sinha:

that you add to a solution to cause something to come out of

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solution, usually as a solid, and, and so it causes this stuff

Leela Sinha:

to like, coalesce and fall down, I think of it as like snowing

Leela Sinha:

inside a vial of liquid or a vat of liquid. And, and we need, we

Leela Sinha:

need- This space and time is actually the thing that makes

Leela Sinha:

that happen for us, that makes our brains create the space for

Leela Sinha:

us to have more original thoughts, to have deeper

Leela Sinha:

thoughts, to have more complex thoughts, those things happen

Leela Sinha:

when we're not being stimulated externally. When we're not

Leela Sinha:

surrounding ourselves with words and ideas and videos. I do all

Leela Sinha:

of that. I put all the stuff into my head. And you know, this

Leela Sinha:

book is another way of putting things in, although I can much

Leela Sinha:

more easily stop and stare into space when she says something

Leela Sinha:

that I want to think about for a while. But when I think about

Leela Sinha:

running an ethical business, when I think about how do we

Leela Sinha:

construct a working world that is, in fact, continuously

Leela Sinha:

sustainable? Of course, we need time off, we need days off, we

Leela Sinha:

probably need half the week off. Honestly, 40 hours a week was

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supposed to be the starting point. And then unions lost the

Leela Sinha:

power to negotiate for what actually makes sense for human

Leela Sinha:

beings. But they're coming back, I hope they're coming back. And

Leela Sinha:

also, we shouldn't, as owners of businesses, we should not

Leela Sinha:

require unions to force us into that. We should not require this

Leela Sinha:

kind of negotiation to force us into that. We should be able to

Leela Sinha:

come up with this on our own. You know, every time unions try

Leela Sinha:

to organize in like Starbucks or something, they try to convince

Leela Sinha:

the people who are trying to organize that, oh, we're

Leela Sinha:

friends, you don't need to organize with us, we're going to

Leela Sinha:

take care of you, but they're not taking care of them. That's

Leela Sinha:

why the organizing is happening. So I think unions should exist.

Leela Sinha:

I think that's fine. I think collective bargaining makes a

Leela Sinha:

lot of sense. And I think that as owners of businesses, as

Leela Sinha:

people in charge of departments as people in management roles,

Leela Sinha:

we need to be proactively meeting the needs of our people

Leela Sinha:

so that they don't have to negotiate as hard to get their

Leela Sinha:

needs met. It works better for everyone it makes for a better

Leela Sinha:

business, a better work environment, more productive

Leela Sinha:

employees in the end, but even if it didn't, even if people

Leela Sinha:

were less productive as a result of having their needs met, it

Leela Sinha:

would still be the right thing to do. And that's why we should

Leela Sinha:

do it.

Leela Sinha:

So as business owners, my question for us, and it's an

Leela Sinha:

ongoing question, but my question for us is how, how are

Leela Sinha:

we creating spaciousness in the rhythm and cadence of our

Leela Sinha:

businesses? And in the rhythm and cadence of our business

Leela Sinha:

transactions? So if I ask someone for something, most of

Leela Sinha:

the time, how do I make sure that I'm not forcing them into

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an undue rush? How do I make sure that I'm not forcing them

Leela Sinha:

into overstretching their capacity? I want them to give me

Leela Sinha:

the thing. I may have a schedule I'd like to have it on. But one

Leela Sinha:

of the things I can do to make that a more humane transaction,

Leela Sinha:

more a transaction between humans and less a transaction

Leela Sinha:

between business entities, even if it is a transaction between

Leela Sinha:

business entities; how can how can we, as business owners, be

Leela Sinha:

that change, effect that change, right now in our in our

Leela Sinha:

interactions. What can we do? How can we communicate better?

Leela Sinha:

How can we plan better? How can we anticipate better? How can we

Leela Sinha:

create more buffers, more spaciousness in our own

Leela Sinha:

schedule? So if somebody does need something in a hurry, it

Leela Sinha:

doesn't actually stress us out. It's like, oh, yeah, I always

Leela Sinha:

keep extra buffer space in my schedule for that. How do we

Leela Sinha:

make those spaces in our stuff? So that the lives of ourselves

Leela Sinha:

and the people we interact with and our workers are all

Leela Sinha:

transformed, are all more spacious, all have a continuous

Leela Sinha:

rest. Sabbath is a great thing, and I'll probably keep talking

Leela Sinha:

about it because I'm thinking about it a lot. But, but

Leela Sinha:

sabbath, taking days off, off off, away from work off, is only

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part of it. The other part of it is this sustained rest, this

Leela Sinha:

continuous rest, rest as a continuous practice while also

Leela Sinha:

working. And that's the thing that we have the most power to

Leela Sinha:

support. So how are we going to do that?

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