Momentum

Everyone constantly talks about how life is ever running. The old adage goes, “Life goes on, you ought to go with it”. This reminds me of something from the ninth standard physics book. Today, let’s try to do what we’ve been taught to do, apply academic knowledge in the real world.

It’s important to set a tone and get some momentum.

– Ben Zobrist

Holidays are probably the most anticipated periods in the lives of the modern civilization. Its members run around for days, weeks, months on end, chasing these precious snowflakes of time, which when reached turn out to be just that, snowflakes. They stay for less than one fifty-sixth of the time people waited for them. And the most interesting part is they always leave us wanting more.

A question that came to my mind was, we spend most of our lives to get to a point where we start to “earn money”. We dedicate every ounce of our living to become independent (which is most certainly a relative term), study, eat our vitamins, burn the midnight oil and somehow scratch and claw our way to becoming earners. However, every step of the way, we look for time off, those holidays, those weekends, those festivals. Every day we count the number of days when we won’t have to set an alarm to wake up.

All the effort, all the momentum we build, we yearn to destroy ourselves, only to build it back up again. Let’s go back to what we talked about in the beginning of the article, the ninth grade physics book. I am sure every one of us knows something or the other about the three laws of motion, given by the person we’ve resented at some point in our lives, Sir Isaac Newton. The first law, also called the law of inertia, states that a body stays at rest or in motion until and unless an external force of the opposite nature is applied to it. Holidays do just that, apply an opposing force to all the momentum we build throughout the days, weeks and months. Sounds counter-intuitive, does it not?

I know, most people are reading this with a crooked eyebrow. “What does that even mean? Working tirelessly will kill me. I need that time off”. Well good sir (or madam), I am with you. We need time off in order to recuperate, lick our wounds, pick our selves up, dust our dirty shirts off and gear up in order to face what the new day, week and month has in stores for us. Through this discussion, we were trying to establish the importance of breaks. Time off acts as a dampener on the suffering we accumulate through extended activities, the resting period for the wear and tear, if you will.

Let’s think about a notion. Imagine a school, college or workplace where there is absolutely no stress. No strict teachers, lecturers or bosses, no homework, assignments or deadlines, flexible hours and free stand-up comedy sessions in the middle of the day, while everyone is allowed to eat their favorite flavor of pizzas. When the image is complete, let me put forth a question. Would there be a need for breaks from an experience like this?

I hear “No”, so I’m going to take that as the response of the majority. But is the real world as kind as our imaginations? What? Do I hear “No” again? Okay, if that’s what the majority thinks. Therefore, we need those snowflakes in our lives, and at regular intervals.

This is my dig at the description of a typical break now a days, tell me if this sounds familiar. All week-long, staring at the computer screen, we wait, patiently yet frantically, for our beloved weekend to come. We spend hour after hour at work dreaming about the amount of rest and the productivity surge we’ll have during the time off. And finally, the awaited time comes and we are in the comfort of our homes, waking up at the desired hour of the day, only to find ourselves with the same (or similar) screen in front of our eyes, accompanied by other things that help us forget all our plans that we made for boosting our productivity. “I’ll do all that, just one more episode”.

If we become a little honest with ourselves, are we actually taking breaks these days? I think we are, but we aren’t doing that properly. We are using these precious breaks with numbing agents, instead of rejuvenating ones. We aren’t resting. More importantly, we aren’t letting our minds rest, giving them content to consume as fast as it is being produced. Instead of confronting what’s actually bothering us, we are just suppressing it and looking forward to what’s next, because that’s the right thing to do, “life goes on, you ought to go with it”, am I right? This, by the way, I think is the reason that we never feel that our breaks are adequate anymore.

Therefore, I think it is of the utmost importance to plan our breaks ahead of time but also, carry through. And one thing I believe all of us should do is sit down and find all the things that are bothering us, at work, at school or within our own selves. Because as tempting as avoidance is, it doesn’t solve anything. Numbness is great, but when it wears off, there’s still that splinter, which might have become gangrenous. Had we removed it the first time we saw it, it would have healed by now. Breaks are great periods to reflect upon what’s going on in our lives, the good, bad and ugly. Let’s use these breaks in momentum to build more.

-Vibhu Vyas