lessons from a macbook.

I spend my days staring at two monitors, constantly opening more and more tabs to juggle the many ways I’m communicating with the world around me. I notice that as my day wears on, more and more tabs are opened and my two fully-capable, way-too-big computer screens become cluttered with many different voices. Until the inevitable crash.

I’m forced to reach a point where in order to continue my day, I must de-clutter. I must close the tabs. I must stop trying to juggle the world in my too-small hands and accept that I can only take so much. I can only do so much. My computer can only hold too many tabs before it throws it’s metaphorical hands up in the air and screams “ENOUGH!”

I find myself frustrated with my computer that it can’t handle all this different information at one time. That it can’t wear all these different hats. Even my computer, which analyzes and spits out large amounts of information faster than I can breathe, has a breaking point. And I get frustrated until I find myself, with the laptop closed, trying to do the exact same thing.

I have this fascination with reinventing myself. I’m constantly debating chopping off my hair, investing in dark red lipstick & an all-black wardrobe, and being really mysterious and silent. Kind of like a sexy mute, I guess.

(The problem with this is that nobody thinks you’re silent or mysterious when upon meeting them you say “hi! I have an Instagram crush on you!” This happened twice last month shoutout to Abby Voigt and Misch).

Usually when I tell my friends that I’m going to reinvent myself, they roll their eyes and say “Oh great, just what you need: more personality.” And I roll my eyes right back and say “That’s the POINT! I want to be…everything?”

We are obsessed with the hustle, but we must take time to remember that you can only hustle after one thing. It’s important to work hard, but if you try to be a communications director AND the new starting Vikings kicker AND an electrical engineer you’re going to crash. Actually, if you’re trying to be the new Vikings kicker, keep trying. They need you.

Over the last few months, I have found myself too many times looking at someone on Instagram and thinking, “ugh, their life is perfect. Why can’t I be as cool/pretty/poetic/fill in the blank?” I hold my life up to the lives of people I don’t even know and find myself disappointed over the lack of perfectly white walls or long Instagram comments. And it wasn’t until my computer shut down and I sat there ruminating on all the ways to make my life look better than it is that I heard the lesson God has been trying to teach me through my computer:

Rest.

There is a stunning lack of rest in my life.

Not that I am stressed out all the time, because I’m not, but over and over again God keeps trying to remind me to rest in who he created me to be and the place that he has me in right now. I have a hard time letting go and accepting the fact that I can only do so much. I can only be so much. I want to keep all my computer tabs open without getting stressed out. Inevitably, however, I crash.

Maybe I’m the only one who struggles with this, but if you find yourself exhausted and burnt out in a world who’s mantra is “be a jack of all trades and a master of none” than I want to encourage you to rest. Take time to quiet the many, many voices that talk throughout the day and close the tabs.