The Three R and R's

Rest and Relaxation. Rules and Regulations. Rights and Responsibilities. If we had to drop one of these three pairs, which could we actually live without? Put it to a vote and see what happens.

My ballot goes to Rules and Regulations. Those are the ones we can set aside, provided we've already got a firm grip on our Rights and Responsibilities. Think about where rights and responsibilities come from in the first place. Values and morals are the internal measuring sticks a soul sets up so it can share this world with other souls. Out of those values grows a sense of what belongs to you by right, and right alongside it, the duties that come bundled with each of those rights.

Rules and regulations exist for a narrower reason than we usually admit. They're drawn up for people who have no values or morals to speak of, or for people whose values differ enough from their neighbors' that the two sides end up fighting. When a person is genuinely committed to a clear set of rights (the amendments to the constitution are one example) and takes the matching responsibilities seriously, the need for an outside rulebook nearly disappears.

Rest and relaxation are what keep us able to go on doing the things we've decided are worth doing. There's a reason Sundays were marked off as a day of rest in the first place. A stretch of time where the point is to let go of obligations and recover, rather than to shoulder more of them. Looking after ourselves can't be optional if we expect to look after anyone else. Picture a caregiver who's running on empty. How much use is that person to the one depending on them? Rest also buys us the quiet to revisit our own values and ask whether we're still living by them.

There was a version of working life where being at your job meant being at your job. You were on the clock, not scrolling through social media (that can wait until you clock out) and not firing off texts. Then five o'clock came, you were off, and the evening was yours: friends, family, loose ends around the house, a wash-up, and a real night's sleep. Parents were never meant to turn into shadowy figures who only appear to shuttle kids from one drop-off to the next and deliver them home in time for bed. And nobody is helped by a punishing commute, or by shift work that keeps wrenching a person's body clock out of rhythm.