The Importance of Doing Nothing

The phone rings, “Hey! how are you?” “How is life?” “What are you upto?” Busy?”

As soon as I hear this…something inside me says, “Tell you are Busy? and there is so much to do and then quickly disconnect”

So many days I end up not picking up the phone. These are tough questions for me, and disconnected superficial answers don’t interest me. Another question is “What else?” If there is nothing, absolutely nothing to talk about, this question is the saviour depending on who asks it first. So if you are smart you will pick this question immediately after “hello”.

There are sometimes when I am meditating, or completely relaxing, doing nothing, just being and the phone rings, I get paranoid. It is almost like, now you are caught doing nothing, you got to be doing something. If the pressure of doing something makes me pick the phone, and I muster the courage to say, I was doing nothing, then I open an entirely new Pandora’s box. Then the person on the other side will talk about how that person is busy all the time, and there is so much to do and no time. Goals to be achieved, shopping to be done, etc. etc. Leaving me with a tinge on guilt, some pressure to find something to do and restlessness.

Recently I started evaluating this. It started with a self doubt, Is there something wrong with me? am I the only one who has free time. Seems like nobody else does. Slowly this self doubt transformed into self preservation. May be I really am very efficient and end up finishing all my home and office routine in time and even earlier than time. The voices in my head kept discussing, just like a brain storming meeting in a corporate board room with no way forward. The voices kept going round and round. It was three days and I was walking alone on the street. I really had nowhere to go and nothing to do. I had packed off my children to school and my husband to office. I had finished clothes and utensils, it was a no office work day and I was free. I looked at people brisk walking, exercising and running to work. It was only dogs and I who seemed agendaless. My mobile rang and I looked at the number, it did not seem familiar, so I took the call, It was a bank offering loan. I hung up after the caller introduced and kept walking, what would I do with a loan? The sun was getting fiercer so I sat under a tree in a garden and saw squirrels, aimlessly running up and down the trees. As I watched them just being and playing, I realized my condition. My condition was only human. No other being, bird or animal seems to be in a hurry except when they are hungry. There is no busy-ness or no business to tend to. We have created our own ways of keeping busy and then turning them into full time occupations. We become occupied by our own business and have no time to relax. In fact we also term it a taboo if we hear of someone not doing anything. “Doing” is very important,”Having a goal, a purpose” is very important, being in a firefighting situation seems to be the right situation to be in (you are like a Hero), and we end up living a extremely stressful life. We sometimes don’t realize  that we are stressed out even when we are on a holiday. While on a holiday we wonder if we have seen what all had to be seen, and whether this was a good deal. Some may spend their entire life making their life’s agenda, some may make an agenda and follow it and some will live forever in self doubt. However, I have observed that relaxation, peace and happiness comes to those who have an open agenda, and don’t drive towards an agenda, they just be and stand in their power. There is something about these people, where everything falls in line…it is almost as if the universe is serving them, every step every moment. These people are more alive and present, they are more available. They have innate acceptance and detachment qualities. I resonate with these agendaless people, in my moments of being. They don’t want to make a call, nor are in a flurry to change the world, they are just being, they listen and connect deeply. They don’t speak until they decide, they seem to be holding a big picture, a big picture, which connects all the dots.

Image Courtesy: http://fullrangecrossfit.com/category/wod/