‘Rest is for babies and relaxation is for retired people,” barks Arnold Schwarzenegger in his new self-help book, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life. I am definitely not the target audience for this tome: I get exhausted just trying to type his surname. It is interesting that Schwarzenegger is viewed as a relatively benign figure whose advice you might want to hear, despite the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. At least he apologised for it and, unlike many Republican politicians, he doesn’t think the climate crisis is woke fiction, which is refreshing.
I think he’s got it very wrong with this rest thing, though. You would expect a man whose entire career was built on the burn to venerate sweating and grinding, but don’t even the biggest biceps and ropiest calves need the odd day off? The concept of rest is enjoying a low-key fight back, gently insisting that hustle culture hushes and has a little lie down with its snuggly blanket. I am seeing an encouraging amount of it: “Rest is productive” reads a widely shared post on my Instagram timeline, and the writer and illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson’s newsletter, You’re Doing a Good Enough Job, joyfully makes the case for doing less and enjoying more.
