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When Rest Feels Wrong: The Pressure to Keep Going
"God told me to sit down. I argued. I lost."
Addison Collingsworth
February 21, 2025
Hey, I’m Addison. You’re reading Bigger Than Me, a newsletter about mastering compassion, the essential skill for great relationships. Sign up or scroll to the good stuff.
Original graphic by Bryan Arcebal
I wasn’t trying to prove anything.
This wasn’t about impressing anyone or earning points for being a dedicated husband and father. No one in my house was standing over me, demanding I get up and do chores after my surgery.
And yet, there I was—sweeping the floor, vacuuming, running around doing what absolutely no one had asked me to do.
Why? Because deep down, I had already decided that resting was unacceptable.
I knew I was supposed to be taking it easy. I knew I needed to recover. But in my head, there was this persistent, completely unnecessary pressure to make sure I was “doing my part.”
Did my wife ask me to overdo it? No.
Were my kids complaining that I wasn’t pulling my weight? No.
Did my doctor give me a long list of things not to do that I immediately ignored? Yes.
It wasn’t that anyone expected me to keep pushing—it was that I expected it from myself. And so I did. Until, unsurprisingly, my body gave out and I ended up spending the next day in bed, completely useless to anyone.
And that’s when it hit me. I did this to myself.
This wasn’t about helping. It wasn’t about love. It wasn’t even about responsibility. It was about control. Because deep down, I wasn’t trusting that things would be okay without me.
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