The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s wholeheartedness

Crouched down in a cold clump of leaves in the woods, I watch a woodpecker. Persistent, unbothered, moving up and down a tree next to me. It is methodically tapping its beak bit-by-bit looking for something to eat. I watch and wonder… Aren’t you tired of this relentless pursuit? Tired of smashing your face again and again with the odds stacked against you? How fleeting disappointment must be for you?

My woodpecker friend, don’t seem to be struggling or frustrated. You simply move on a moment by moment in pursuit, unbothered by the repetition of trying again and again. Not worried about what happens next, what the outcome of each tap against the tree is. This is your life, the persistent pursuit of nourishment moment by moment.

Tap, tap, tap—look for food. Tap, tap, tap—try again. Tap, tap, tap—no time for disappointments. Tap, tap, tap—that would be silly, counterproductive to living.

We hear the word “grind” a lot these days. A collective acknowledgement that daily living in the western world is full of bumps, abrasions, and sparks. The notion that not all stress comes from the big dramatic life moments of life and death, pain, and suffering. Much of it comes from the momentary energy we put into trying to shape and survive in our day to day lives.

The details of my life’s challenges are specific and particular to me, but most of us can relate to this feeling of a boiling point—where we can’t take it anymore, where the stress is too much, and we are tired of trying. Each of us dances between our own tiny stories of struggle and joy in a day.

Sometimes coffee isn’t enough.

Sometimes more sleep can’t help.

Sometimes it feels like all my trying is only making it worse. Like there is no influence, no mark I can make in this world, or in my life.

Sometimes all my therapy, self-help books, and good advice are just beyond my reach.

Sometimes I am locked in a moment where showing gratitude feels like a boulder I just can’t lift.

It’s so hard to pick yourself back up when all you want to do is close your eyes and find some quiet.

Usually, I am the kind of person who thinks that change is always possible, that my pain is fleeting, that improvements can always be made. That it’s my duty to try and make the world a better place.

But it’s also a trap. A set up for disappointment. Call it attachment, call it the grass is always greener. Whatever you call it, the outcome is the same: You become swept away looking for something better, more, or just different. All this trying and lifting and doing can be a setup just weighing us further down.

And then before you know it, you find yourself on the verge of tears, fleeing your life, huddled in a cold clump of leaves in the woods with no resolve or ounce of resilience to be found

What if I never get it right, never quite arrive, never work it out? But what if it’s actually just about showing up again and again, finding little treasures in the moment and continuing on? No past resentments, no future longings. Just a willingness to show up each day and try, and try, again and again and again.

I watch and listen to the woodpecker. I watch and see that it doesn’t stop and wallow in disappointment when it works so hard without reward. It moves on persistently trying because it has to, because that’s what living is. Tap, tap, tap.

It felt like the woodpecker was here to show me how to be. Reminding me that with each moment I feel amiss, that all I need to do is show up again to the next. That this grind is temporary, that I can feel it, notice it, and come to the next moment fresh and continue to try