What the War in Gaza Taught Me about Proactive Rest

The schedule of an educational consultant unaffiliated with a regular school can be an odd one. With students occupied with their classes until late afternoon on weekdays, the consultant is not in a position to speak to the same kids until their evening hours and weekends. The result is that the consultant's work becomes not so different from a barman: busy from the dinner hours late into the night, with no possibility of a free weekend. For someone like me who has always worked in corporate jobs where weekends and holidays are almost sacred for otherwise busy employees, the service industry work schedule is new.

Within this context is a changing definition of what "off-hours" means. Freedom from work used to mean not having to answer emails and even think about work-related projects on Saturdays and Sundays, with two full days available for excursions and even overnight stays in fairly distant places. But with the weekends now always full of meetings, and even regular school hours partly consumed by prep time for evening meetings, off-hours have become much more piecemeal, with an hour or two in between meetings a more realistic expectation of being mentally "away" from work.

For a traveler like myself, the sacrifice of full excursion days over the weekend is clearly painful. I need to abandon any possibility that I can take any trip outside Malta, or even book a hotel stay in the country, at least until all college application work is completed in January next year. But at the same time, the body and mind still need to reset and escape from work at times. So, how do I make those non-consecutive hours away from meetings and essay readings as restful as two consecutive days away from the workplace, that is, my laptop and desk?

As cynical as it is, I found some inspiration from the long-suffering people of Gaza. As Israel continues to turn the coastal strip into a living hell on Earth, its residents have learned to live in a piecemeal fashion, constantly listening to the latest evacuation orders broadcast by the Israeli military and the sudden bombs that might drop from the sky should there be high-value targets nearby that justify strikes without evacuation. As gruesome as it sounds, the Gazans have learned to live non-consecutively, picking off their regular routines whenever they can while moving continually when they must.

Beyond the headline news about the number of newly dead and the scarring images of injured children being carried into nearly nonfunctional hospitals, most of the Gazan population has so far survived. Their homes may have been pulverized, jobs gone, and the next meal as elusive as their money, now useless. But they have learned to continue living with the little assets they can carry, find food from a dwindling variety of sources, and most importantly, still continue to find time to be productive in their own ways – whether it be to pray or protest against Hamas or the Israelis.

That resourcefulness in the face of overwhelming despair reminds me that to "rest" requires just as much concerted planning and energy as work itself may be. The Gazans fleeing their home made it clear that life does not stop when they leave their residences and hometowns against their will. Instead, it is up to them to find ways to remain normal, to continue living, and not to simply give up on who they are just because they no longer seem to control the geography of where their everyday lives occur. I wonder if I can replicate their effort to retain a sense of normality, or at least to reinterpret it, in a clearly abnormal reality.

I am by no means trivializing the suffering of the Gazans and suggesting that my inability to have solid weekends away from work has any obvious parallels with their uprooted lives. But the very idea that lives can continue in the most abhorrent situations, where any semblance of normality is gone, suggests that my own ability to adjust can be much stronger than the limits of my current imagination. To actively learn to rest and to be mentally somewhere else, more peaceful, and more relaxed has kept many a Gazan sane. Why can't the same power help me?

Perhaps the very act of seeking out that mental flexibility that I did not know I had makes for a good rest. In my talks with students, I stretch their critical thinking, and in the process, my own, through questions about their lives. In my new desire for more disjointed, active rest, I may use the same process, thinking back on how I can formulate a concerted state of relaxation out of all the small pieces of time away from work. Sure, meetings will come here and there, sometimes suddenly. But if Gaza has taught us anything, it is that resilience does not die so easily.