What's up with all the self-care? (August Posting Challenge)

I used to have a saying with my coworkers, "Nobody cares. Work harder."

It was our sarcastic interpretation of the company values. But that is a common attitude in a lot of jobs, families, and teams.

Now there is a reaction to that called "self-care." The attitude is that if we rest enough or care for ourselves enough, we can prevent burnout and be successful.

I think of them as two points on a line.

  • Work
  • Rest
And we are caught between them. We pivot back and forth from work to rest and try to juggle everything. And that is where we get "self-care." We are the pivot point. Self-work. Self-care. I hear a lot of promises that one of these will work, but they never seem to work.

Here is where self-care goes wrong. Work and rest are right. Nothing wrong with either. But the pivot point is wrong.

The pivot point should be "Abide in Christ." John 15 calls us to this. Then we can pivot from work to rest. But instead of self-care and work ethic we find we can abide in Christ while we work and we can rest abiding in Christ. 



I think it is better work and better rest. Better care.

*Thanks to Mac McCarthy and Gravity Leadership for inspiring my thoughts on this and to my wife for helping me figure out what's going on with "self-care."

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