The luxury of rest

Someone once told me:

“People like us don’t have the luxury of rest.”

I understood exactly what they meant.

There are people who have become very good at functioning.
They work under pressure.
They solve problems.
They carry responsibility.
They show up when things are difficult.
They manage the crisis and deal with how they feel about it later, if ever.

And because they continue to perform, they often look completely fine.
Sometimes even successful.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons we misunderstand burnout.
We tend to imagine someone who can no longer cope.
But sometimes burnout happens precisely because someone can cope.

Again.
And again.
And again.
Until coping becomes the expectation.
From the organization.
From the people around them.
And eventually, from themselves.
Rest starts feeling like something that has to be earned.
Being unavailable feels irresponsible.
Getting sick feels inconvenient.
And saying “I cannot do this right now” becomes much harder than simply doing it.

This is where I think our conversations about workplace wellness need to go deeper.
Because resilience is valuable.
But an environment that continuously relies on people's resilience without asking what it is costing them is not necessarily a healthy one.

Perhaps the question is not only:
How do we make people more resilient?
Perhaps we should also be asking:
What is it about the way we work that makes people feel they have to keep pushing until they lose sight of themselves?