Rest as Resistance in a Culture of Exhaustion
Rest is not a luxury; it is an act of resistance. — Tricia Hersey
—What lingers after this line?
One-minute reflection
Why might this line matter today, not tomorrow?
Reframing Rest as Power
Tricia Hersey’s line overturns a familiar assumption: that rest is something we earn only after proving our productivity. Instead, she frames rest as a deliberate choice that asserts human worth beyond output. By calling it “an act of resistance,” she implies there is something to resist—an economic and cultural order that normalizes depletion. This shift matters because it moves rest from the private realm of self-care into the public realm of values. Once rest is understood as power, it stops being a guilty indulgence and becomes a statement: a refusal to let constant performance define the boundaries of a life.
What Exactly Are We Resisting?
The resistance Hersey points to is not simply against being busy, but against the expectation that exhaustion is proof of virtue. In many workplaces and communities, overwork is praised as dedication, while rest is treated as laziness or weakness. The result is a quiet social pressure that trains people to ignore their bodies. Seen this way, choosing rest disrupts a feedback loop that rewards self-neglect. It challenges the idea that time must always be monetized or optimized, and it makes room for another measure of value—health, presence, creativity, and connection.
Historical Roots: Labor, Control, and the Body
Hersey’s framing also echoes a longer history in which control over people has often meant control over their time and bodies. Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) popularized the idea that work should be measured, standardized, and intensified for efficiency—an approach that shaped modern productivity culture. Against that backdrop, rest becomes more than recovery; it becomes a boundary. When someone refuses relentless pacing, they are not merely opting out of a schedule—they are contesting a system that treats human energy as an endlessly extractable resource.
The Inner Battlefield: Guilt and Worthiness
Resistance doesn’t only happen in policy or workplaces; it also happens inside the mind. Many people feel guilty when resting because they’ve absorbed the belief that worth must be constantly demonstrated. That guilt can be so persuasive that even free time becomes “catch-up time,” haunted by unseen to-do lists. In that context, rest is a practice of unlearning. It’s the repeated, sometimes uncomfortable decision to treat oneself as inherently deserving of care. Over time, this quiet defiance can reshape identity—from “I am what I produce” to “I am a person with needs, limits, and dignity.”
Collective Rest and Shared Liberation
Moreover, Hersey’s statement suggests that rest has a communal dimension. If only a few people can rest while others are forced to grind, then rest remains a privilege rather than a right. A culture that respects rest must ask who is denied it through low wages, precarious jobs, caregiving burdens, or discrimination. When rest is protected collectively—through boundaries, fair labor practices, and mutual aid—it becomes a form of shared liberation. In that sense, resting can be both personal healing and a quiet solidarity with others who are fighting for the basic conditions to breathe.
Turning the Quote into a Daily Practice
Finally, treating rest as resistance invites practical choices that are small but consequential: declining unnecessary urgency, taking real breaks without apology, sleeping enough, and letting the body set limits. Even simple acts—closing the laptop at a humane hour or refusing to compete in burnout bragging—can function as everyday dissent. The point isn’t to romanticize rest as effortless; resistance rarely is. Rather, Hersey’s idea asks for intention: to rest not because everything is finished, but because you are not a machine—and living as though that’s true is, in itself, a radical stance.