Note from Brett: sorry for the inactivity for the past week, everyone. I managed my time and energy poorly and made a mistake in scheduling this post, which is why it’s running today instead of last Thursday. I couldn’t correct my mistake since I was out visiting the University of Pennsylvania and didn’t have a computer.
As much as I like to be productive, sometimes it’s productive to not be productive at all.
Our busy lives and all of our obligations threaten to swallow up every last second of free time that we have. If you’re not actively doing something, everyone preaches, you’re wasting time.
Sometimes the best thing to do when you have a free moment (or a thousand) is to do nothing at all. To pause and reflect about the direction your life is headed. To take a deep breath. To relish the feeling of being alive.
Keeping Your Head Down and Never Changing Course = Zombie
Our system of working – and living – has made it so we spend all our time doing things. We are always doing an activity, whether it’s sleeping, eating, driving, working, reading, or watching TV. We’re always doing.
When you’re busy occupying yourself with too much “doingâ€, there’s no time to just “beâ€. “Being time†is when you sit and reflect on what’s going on in your life – where you can take the time to actually think about those things you spend all of your waking hours doing. You won’t be able to change anything that you’re doing if you’re so preoccupied that you can’t even think; just allowing yourself to be and assess where you’re going in your life can save you hours of mindless drudgery.
Imagine if, while you’re sitting there, thinking about things, that you discover a new or novel idea that will fundamentally change the way you work. Maybe it’s a realization about how to approach a particularly difficult project or problem that you’re facing. Maybe it’s a way to make yourself more efficient because you’ve identified a major distraction that disturbs you all the time when you’re working. Maybe it’s just realizing how grateful you are to live the life you lead, and you end up changing the way you live for the rest of your life.
All of those are the benefits – none too farfetched – of giving yourself time to just be. Scheduling in a period of time where your object is to do nothing allows you to pick your head up from the grindstone and ask yourself, “Why am I doing this? Am I getting what I want out of my life right now?â€
If the answer’s yes, you’ll get back to work.
If the answer’s no, you’ll probe further, examining your work, relationships, health, and everything in-between. That kind of self-examination is what you need in order to catalyze personal change and/or improvement.
However, it’s up to you to stop working and take a look around once in a while. Even if you’re not hell-bent on changing your life because you’re satisfied with yourself, life’s a lot sweeter when you take the time to smell the roses. Trust me – I’m feeling the impermanence of my own life now that I’m officially an adult, and all the days that I thought would never come have already passed me by.