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Not many people can understand this affinity, especially in a South Asian milieu where creative writing isn’t perceived as a traditional career path. Owing to the limited possibilities others imagined for my future, I found myself at a prestigious law school.

Instead, it is rooted in other activities and stimuli. In her insightful book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, internal medicine physician Saundra Dalton Smith examines how people can experience seven different types of exhaustion. Each form of fatigue requires a different remedy.

Emotional exhaustion often arises from incessant people-pleasing, which compels many of us to disregard our personal boundaries and stifle our true feelings. Sensory fatigue is a consequence of excessive exposure to noise, bright lights and digital screens, resulting in overstimulation that can only be eased by reducing such stimuli.

Ashamed of my own inadequacies, I didn’t want my vulnerabilities to be exposed before those who might silently judge me for being overly sensitive. Not everyone would understand that my body’s desire for rest was possibly connected to the occupational hazards of working in the media, where journalists are the first to process traumatic events, sometimes even before the public hears about them.

This, too, proved futile because I was relying on a superficial remedy to tackle a crisis that required tangible action. At long last, I mustered the courage to quit my job, citing my desire to write fiction on a full-time basis and involve myself in my family business.

Driven by the instinct of self-preservation, I chose rest over the rigour and intensity of a relentless work routine, not because I regarded it as a luxury, but because I had finally come to understand that it was a necessary ingredient to prevent myself from going adrift. Over the years, I’ve tried to achieve a fine balance between work commitments and personal priorities.

They serve as a regular reminder that rest can’t take a backseat to our relentless pursuit of money in an inherently capitalist world.

The writer is a critically acclaimed author. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer. Pages.

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