As owners of businesses, as people in charge of departments, as people in management roles, we need to be proactively meeting the needs of our people. And that includes the need for continuous rest at work, for space and time for us to have more original thoughts, to have deeper thoughts, to have more complex thoughts.
Judith Shulevitz’s book “The Sabbath World” may be found at this link.
Transcript
Hi, everyone. So I've been, I've been pretty
Leela Sinha:isolated during the pandemic deliberately. And by choice and
Leela Sinha:privilege I have not so far been spending a lot of time out in
Leela Sinha:places doing things, because out in places means out proximate to
Leela Sinha:people, and people suddenly got really dangerous. But today, in
Leela Sinha:the course of running some errands, I walked by the local
Leela Sinha:branch of my library. And I decided that maybe I should pay
Leela Sinha:them a quick visit. I grew up in libraries. I literally grew up
Leela Sinha:in libraries every Saturday, many weekday nights. It was
Leela Sinha:something I think that my mother could do with me that was not
Leela Sinha:perplexing. And so we did it a lot. And my family has always
Leela Sinha:valued learning and education. And so with their value of
Leela Sinha:learning, and education, and my love of books, a lifelong love
Leela Sinha:was born. And so when I'm feeling unsettled, when things
Leela Sinha:don't feel right, when everything seems to be upside
Leela Sinha:down and backwards, going to a library is soothing, for me. I
Leela Sinha:know this isn't true for everyone, I have a close friend,
Leela Sinha:who experienced libraries as places where she was told to
Leela Sinha:shush and do things like study and not allowed to be curious or
Leela Sinha:interested or active or excited. And I know that libraries aren't
Leela Sinha:really all like that anymore. But that was fairly true when we
Leela Sinha:were growing up and, and I understand why she feels that
Leela Sinha:way. But my libraries, my library experience was an
Leela Sinha:experience of refuge, an experience of imagination, an
Leela Sinha:experience of possibility, an experience of a way to access
Leela Sinha:things that were beyond my reach. So I went to the library.
Leela Sinha:And this branch library is a beautiful little Arts and Crafts
Leela Sinha:building, on the corner of a major street and a minor street.
Leela Sinha:In my neighborhood, walking distance, exactly the way one
Leela Sinha:thinks a small town library should be except this isn't a
Leela Sinha:small town. It has friendly librarians, several self
Leela Sinha:checkout stations, tables and lights and places to plug in,
Leela Sinha:and ranks and ranks books. And one of the books that I stumbled
Leela Sinha:across in my futile attempt to get something lighthearted is
Leela Sinha:called "The Sabbath World" by Judith Shulevitz. I promise this
Leela Sinha:is related to business. So I picked up this book and I
Leela Sinha:started paging through it because I've been increasingly
Leela Sinha:engaged with the idea that sabbath that this idea of, of
Leela Sinha:deliberate, structured, rest is critical to good business. And
Leela Sinha:that our loss of that over the course of mostly the industrial
Leela Sinha:revolution, but also other things, has led us to a place as
Leela Sinha:humanity where we are much less able to do good work in the
Leela Sinha:right kind of time; we've lost the sense of rightness to
Leela Sinha:timing, and instead, rightness belongs to the clock. She
Leela Sinha:explores these ideas in some detail even right in the
Leela Sinha:beginning of the book, but but I had already been thinking about
Leela Sinha:them extensively, significantly. And I've also been thinking
Leela Sinha:about how alarms set containers and containers make things
Leela Sinha:possible. Right? Boundaries, make things possibl;e we can do
Leela Sinha:this because we're not doing that; we can start this because
Leela Sinha:we stopped that. We can make spaces where we need to make
Leela Sinha:spaces. I set alarms, not anymore to make sure that I'm
Leela Sinha:awake, although there's a little bit of that still in there for
Leela Sinha:me, but mostly to remind me that it's time to start turning
Leela Sinha:toward my day. I can get caught up in all kinds of cogitation
Leela Sinha:and ideation and never really turn toward the mechanics of my
Leela Sinha:day or the things on my calendar, if I don't set an
Leela Sinha:alarm that says "Okay, let's start turning toward the day."
Leela Sinha:So that's what my morning alarms usually mean. Let's turn toward
Leela Sinha:the day.
Leela Sinha:It sets a boundary between the liminality of the waking up
Leela Sinha:space, of the preparing space, of the showering and praying
Leela Sinha:space and the concreteness of my day. But even there, my days are
Leela Sinha:at least 50% thinking; thinking, and dreaming and imagining and
Leela Sinha:feeling my way into what's coming next. And that's not
Leela Sinha:because I don't run a business, I do run a business. But because
Leela Sinha:the kind of business I run relies on my brain having that
Leela Sinha:space, to do the work that my business calls for. So even,
Leela Sinha:even in the quotidian existence, there's this demand of my system
Leela Sinha:and of the system for this spaciousness for this space and
Leela Sinha:time. And I believe that this is not unique to clergy, who are
Leela Sinha:often accorded this, even by contract, or to, to academics,
Leela Sinha:who are often at least accorded a sabbatical time and are not
Leela Sinha:considered to be quote unquote, "not working" if they're sitting
Leela Sinha:in their office staring into space with a paper in front of
Leela Sinha:them, but also, everybody else. Everybody needs to be accorded
Leela Sinha:this time. Everybody needs to be accorded the space. And when
Leela Sinha:people are accorded this time and space, things come out of
Leela Sinha:solution, they percolate out. My father is a chemical engineer.
Leela Sinha:And when I was maybe in elementary school, maybe middle
Leela Sinha:school, I learned about flocculants, I learned what the
Leela Sinha:word flocculant means. A flocculant is usually a chemical
Leela Sinha:that you add to a solution to cause something to come out of
Leela Sinha:solution, usually as a solid, and, and so it causes this stuff
Leela Sinha:to like, coalesce and fall down, I think of it as like snowing
Leela Sinha:inside a vial of liquid or a vat of liquid. And, and we need, we
Leela Sinha:need- This space and time is actually the thing that makes
Leela Sinha:that happen for us, that makes our brains create the space for
Leela Sinha:us to have more original thoughts, to have deeper
Leela Sinha:thoughts, to have more complex thoughts, those things happen
Leela Sinha:when we're not being stimulated externally. When we're not
Leela Sinha:surrounding ourselves with words and ideas and videos. I do all
Leela Sinha:of that. I put all the stuff into my head. And you know, this
Leela Sinha:book is another way of putting things in, although I can much
Leela Sinha:more easily stop and stare into space when she says something
Leela Sinha:that I want to think about for a while. But when I think about
Leela Sinha:running an ethical business, when I think about how do we
Leela Sinha:construct a working world that is, in fact, continuously
Leela Sinha:sustainable? Of course, we need time off, we need days off, we
Leela Sinha:probably need half the week off. Honestly, 40 hours a week was
Leela Sinha:supposed to be the starting point. And then unions lost the
Leela Sinha:power to negotiate for what actually makes sense for human
Leela Sinha:beings. But they're coming back, I hope they're coming back. And
Leela Sinha:also, we shouldn't, as owners of businesses, we should not
Leela Sinha:require unions to force us into that. We should not require this
Leela Sinha:kind of negotiation to force us into that. We should be able to
Leela Sinha:come up with this on our own. You know, every time unions try
Leela Sinha:to organize in like Starbucks or something, they try to convince
Leela Sinha:the people who are trying to organize that, oh, we're
Leela Sinha:friends, you don't need to organize with us, we're going to
Leela Sinha:take care of you, but they're not taking care of them. That's
Leela Sinha:why the organizing is happening. So I think unions should exist.
Leela Sinha:I think that's fine. I think collective bargaining makes a
Leela Sinha:lot of sense. And I think that as owners of businesses, as
Leela Sinha:people in charge of departments as people in management roles,
Leela Sinha:we need to be proactively meeting the needs of our people
Leela Sinha:so that they don't have to negotiate as hard to get their
Leela Sinha:needs met. It works better for everyone it makes for a better
Leela Sinha:business, a better work environment, more productive
Leela Sinha:employees in the end, but even if it didn't, even if people
Leela Sinha:were less productive as a result of having their needs met, it
Leela Sinha:would still be the right thing to do. And that's why we should
Leela Sinha:do it.
Leela Sinha:So as business owners, my question for us, and it's an
Leela Sinha:ongoing question, but my question for us is how, how are
Leela Sinha:we creating spaciousness in the rhythm and cadence of our
Leela Sinha:businesses? And in the rhythm and cadence of our business
Leela Sinha:transactions? So if I ask someone for something, most of
Leela Sinha:the time, how do I make sure that I'm not forcing them into
Leela Sinha:an undue rush? How do I make sure that I'm not forcing them
Leela Sinha:into overstretching their capacity? I want them to give me
Leela Sinha:the thing. I may have a schedule I'd like to have it on. But one
Leela Sinha:of the things I can do to make that a more humane transaction,
Leela Sinha:more a transaction between humans and less a transaction
Leela Sinha:between business entities, even if it is a transaction between
Leela Sinha:business entities; how can how can we, as business owners, be
Leela Sinha:that change, effect that change, right now in our in our
Leela Sinha:interactions. What can we do? How can we communicate better?
Leela Sinha:How can we plan better? How can we anticipate better? How can we
Leela Sinha:create more buffers, more spaciousness in our own
Leela Sinha:schedule? So if somebody does need something in a hurry, it
Leela Sinha:doesn't actually stress us out. It's like, oh, yeah, I always
Leela Sinha:keep extra buffer space in my schedule for that. How do we
Leela Sinha:make those spaces in our stuff? So that the lives of ourselves
Leela Sinha:and the people we interact with and our workers are all
Leela Sinha:transformed, are all more spacious, all have a continuous
Leela Sinha:rest. Sabbath is a great thing, and I'll probably keep talking
Leela Sinha:about it because I'm thinking about it a lot. But, but
Leela Sinha:sabbath, taking days off, off off, away from work off, is only
Leela Sinha:part of it. The other part of it is this sustained rest, this
Leela Sinha:continuous rest, rest as a continuous practice while also
Leela Sinha:working. And that's the thing that we have the most power to
Leela Sinha:support. So how are we going to do that?