The Japanese Character for Rest Helped Me Find It
How to find real rest and relaxation
When you imagine someone resting, what do you visualize? Perhaps you would describe a person on the couch, or a person curled up under the covers in bed. Maybe you’d imagine a person lounging in a hammock, or suntanning on the beach.
If you were to ask a Japanese person, they would probably describe rest as a person leaning against a tree.
人：person
木：tree
休：rest
The Japanese character for rest is the combination of ‘person’ and ‘tree’. It’s a universal image, the person leaning against the tree to rest– a representation of rest as not simply sleep or the absence of work, but it’s about being in a safe place, a place where we can feel peace.
Recent work-from-home set-ups have tempted many of us to blend our environments– to eat where we work or work where we sleep–but this sort of blending of environments has made places that are traditionally designed for rest into spaces that aren’t conducive to finding peace.
