I’m in touch with a lot of people on the go. Busy people , creative people, people who are stressed and low on energy. I am one myself. Very often I find myself in a conversation encouraging these wonderful human beings to do nothing. Invariably the response I get is, I can?t I don?t know how. There is some guilt complex at play when a person feels they are not being productive
First of all Why?
Doing nothing means not producing. Not stressing out, not filling in obligations or being beholden to anyone. When I used to train as a triathlete, I trained intensely for me and my body every week. Every week I had the same level of productivity and eventually I got injured depressed and disillusioned to the point where I do no sport and haven’t been able to get back into the groove for a few years. Some of that is fear and some of that is a change in priorities.
When I stopped and I looked over the collective wisdom I found I had missed an important part of my training. It was supposed to be something like slow week, hard week, long week, rest week. I was just doing hard week after hard week.
I am also aware of people taking holidays and doing something different or nothing and coming back super excited about the completion of a project.
The reason to do nothing was to let my body recuperate. Food and sleep are wonderful but they are not all. Sometimes our creativity or our physical emotional and spiritual self can benefit greatly by a day of turning off the screens, putting the phone on silent and just staying in bed a little longer, having a hot bath, a gentle walk or reading something light.
Second of all what does it mean to do nothing?
To do nothing means to do anything that doesn?t have a long term goal, to avoid the obligations. It means to not deplete our energy on helping others. It means to not be distracted by video games TV or cleaning the house even. To do nothing means loving the self. Allowing the self time to recuperate, regenerate and perhaps even become reinvigorated. A quiet day with some candles soft music and a meditation, a light stretch and some simple food a hot bath, or evening skipping the shower or not bothering to get dressed. The goal of a day like this is self love and care. Not guilt shame and stress.
Like a machine sometimes we get overheated or run to far and too long and we really need this time to do nothing important.
So can you find the time and the discipline to do nothing , for one day? Your colleagues and responsibilities are going nowhere. Your obligations will still be there when you have finished. Do yourself a big favour give yourself a present and pick a day to do nothing.
Catch you soon.