How rappelling into the Golden Cathedral set me straight about work, work, work
I just got back from three days hiking Neon Canyon, deep in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument — a wild and rugged area in southern Utah that spans nearly 2 million acres, a larger footprint than the state of Delaware.
I hiked 14 miles through staggering red rocks and slot canyons, waded through shallow pools where I learned that dry suits are simultaneously my best friend and sworn enemy, and gained 1,200 feet in elevation with a 50-pound pack on my back through full sun and 80-degree heat. Oh, and the grand finale of this trek? Just a 90-foot rappel into the iconic Golden Cathedral. I entered a chamber — a room-like area in a slot canyon — where bottomless narrows gave me a glimpse of the water glimmering nearly 10 stories below. With my adrenaline pumping and heart beating out of my chest, I descended through a narrow chute that opened into an earth-crafted sandstone skylight, where I glided down a 40-foot free-hanging drop into a pool of water.
It is not an easy trip! It asks something of you.
It also gave back much more than I expected. You hike under that impossibly blue Utah sky between red rocks that look sculpted by hand, trudging through still pools and rappelling down canyon walls. The terrain out there was the last area to be mapped in the lower 48 — nobody got to it until the 1980s, around the same time Best Friends was founded, if you can believe that because it was so close to impassable.
But the thing that surprised me most wasn’t the scenery. It was the solitude. There’s just something about being out there with not a soul around. It felt like I was in Desert Solitaire — you know, that iconic nonfiction book by Edward Abbey chronicling his time in Utah’s canyonlands — where I was awed by the natural world’s beauty time and again. There’s a lot of world out there that most people never get to see. And standing in the middle of it, I kept thinking the same thing: I’m so glad I can still do this. I went after something I’d wanted to do for years. It makes me want to do more.
I can’t believe I almost didn’t go. And not even just this year but ever.
I’ve wanted to hike Neon Canyon for as long as I can remember. For years, though, I had every reason not to … I was too busy, or there was too much going on, or the work needed me too much. Blah, blah, blah. I kept telling myself I’d do it later, the way we all tell ourselves we’ll do the thing later. And then one day, I caught myself thinking something that scared me more than any 90-foot rappel: What if I waited too long and my body could no longer take me there?
For most of my working life, I really didn’t take time off — not real time off anyway. I had it in my head that there was something noble about plowing my way through –– that grinding without a break was a badge of honor. I really didn’t take much PTO until after I became CEO, and even then it took me a bit to understand that rest isn’t a reward you earn once the work is finally done. It’s part of how the work gets done at all.
I learned a version of this lesson the hard way once before. Years ago, a cancer diagnosis forced me to slow down and pay attention to my own health in a way I never had. I’ve written about that, so I won’t rehash it all here. But what took me even longer to understand was that true rest is part of that same picture.
So let me say the thing I wish someone had said to me sooner: There is no glory in not taking time off. You cannot help anyone — not your team, not your family, not the animals — when you’re running on empty.
I’ve watched too many people wait too long, telling themselves they’ll take the trip, do the bucket-list thing, once life finally slows down. And by the time they decide they have the time, the window has already closed. Gregory and I put our own honeymoon off by two full years because we just kept working. Two years, gone, just like that.
I think those of us in animal welfare are especially prone to this. We do this work because we love animals, and somewhere along the way that love gets tangled up with the idea that we’re supposed to sacrifice and suffer for it — that struggle is just the price of admission for caring this much. I believed that for a long time. I’ve written before about how the same mindset shows up in how our field pays and treats the people doing this work and how much damage it can do.
But the truth is, when you’re depleted, you can’t show up. When compassion fatigue has hollowed you out, you can’t do right by the dog or cat in front of you. The pets still waiting for homes of their own need us to keep showing up, which means we have to be people who are actually capable of that. I promise that taking care of yourself isn’t a betrayal of the mission. I’d venture to say it’s a requirement of it.
Now, obviously, not everyone’s rest looks like a three-day excursion through slot canyons. That’s my kind of rest, and it works for me, but you need to find the rest that best fits you. You don’t need to book an expensive vacation or vanish for two weeks. What I’m telling you is much simpler and I think more important: Stop saving your rest for a “someday” that may never come. Use the day you’ve got. Take the long weekend. Sit on your porch and do absolutely nothing. Go see that oddity an hour from your house you’ve never made the time for. Choose yourself and do something. Rest doesn’t have to be epic to count; it just has to be real.
Life, to me, is about adventure. It’s about living each day as fully as you possibly can. The work will still be there when you get back, but the window of time for the thing you keep putting off won’t stay open forever.
So go. Take the time. Seek out and accomplish that thing you’ve always wanted to do. I’m so glad I finally did.
-Julie
