Lazy Lion

This morning I was sitting with my daughter watching Miss Rachel when the “Lazy Lion” song came on.

She mentions that lions can spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping or resting, and I had one of those random thoughts that suddenly felt not so random.

When we think of power in nature, what do we think of? The lion; the king of the jungle.

Strength. Courage. Power. Presence.

And yet this incredibly powerful animal spends the majority of its life resting?!

Lions are built for short, intense bursts of energy. For hunting, protecting, fighting and surviving. Their rest isn’t something they do instead of being powerful, their rest is part of what allows them to be so powerful.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about how opposite that is from the way we tend to live.

We associate “power” with constant action.

Doing more.
Working harder.
Being productive.
Pushing through.
Always being available.
Always being “on.”

But maybe reaching our full potential was never supposed to require constantly draining ourselves.

A lion doesn’t waste its energy trying to prove that it’s powerful.

It rests.
It observes.
It conserves.
And when its energy is needed, it has it.

Maybe rest isn’t the absence of productivity. Perhaps rest is where we build the capacity for everything we’re asking ourselves to carry.

Power doesn’t come from being in motion all the time. Sometimes power is knowing when your energy is worth spending.