Don't Do Anything - It's Rejuvenating

Nothing.

When was the last time you didn’t do?

When was the last chance you had to spend your time just being instead of constantly taking action?

---

Lockdown has presented an almost alarming challenge for each of us, and that constant hurdle is making sure our actions align with the “productivity standard” that we’ve gotten used to. Many people are struggling with finding a balance between work and rest, pushing themselves so they can call the day ‘productive’. First, let’s examine what productivity actually means.

If we’re defining the word based on an absence of laziness, then getting one assignment done or spending some time working on a passion project should count. Right? But the problem arises when our emotions get imbalanced. We have one super-conductive day and suddenly come up with the expectation that every day needs to look like that. Why Doing Nothing is Actually One of the Best Things You Can Do by Tracy Chabala offers an excellent perspective:

‘Even when we’re not working, many of us feel obliged to do something productive, be it going to the gym, running errands, going to a yoga class, or taking care of bills and other duties. We feel obliged to extract productivity out of every last nanosecond from our daily lives, assessing our worthwhileness as human beings by how successful we are in doing so.’

Ancient yogic teachings drive the point home that things like food and sex- material things that have the potential to become harmful- are fine until they enter the mind.

Huh?

What this means is that productivity can become a ‘drug’, or an addiction of sorts. We see how good we feel about ourselves once we complete another spreadsheet, read another self-improvement book, or even write another blog post (yep), and then try to replicate that feeling. This can be compared to the temporary high people who are addicted get from using a particular substance, and although it may not be as extreme, an excess of productivity can really hurt us. People forget that time is for being, not for doing. The concept of ‘spending’ time doing something really doesn’t make that much sense, because you can’t spend something you cannot control. The only thing that you can do is be while time passes. You can be at your computer, working from home, you can be at the kitchen, making a meal, or you can just be. All of it is okay. It’s important to separate what you call yourself from your thoughts, actions, and reactions. Internal discomfort can often push us outside ourselves to seek external relief.

The irony is that emotions are like a tunnel on the highway. All of them eventually have an end, even seemingly bottomless ones like grief or guilt. Every single thing that you feel has a resolution, but how do you get out of that tunnel on the highway? You drive straight through. Because you know that there is literally a light at the end, it makes perfect sense that you would keep going to reach your destination- in this case inner peace. Procrastination and productivity are two sides of the same coin, and they both can stem from emotional imbalance. But those are just concepts, right?

---

For a farmer living in the countryside, milking the cows and tending to the crops would suffice for coming home and saying “Boy, I got a lot done today”. But people living in highly developed and technological areas can have a skewed mindset, one of hyperactivity or sedentariness. Just because all your work is available to you at a given time does not mean that’s the right time to complete every last assignment. What you are chasing is not the good grade or the promotion, you’re chasing the feeling that you get from being ‘productive’. Not even actually being productive, you’re being seen as productive. And that’s still not accurate, because you can’t be anything except for what you are. Seeing yourself for what you are is a process that people struggle with. They can complete all their work, make millions, and still be unhappy within because the prerequisite to self-discovery is space.

That’s all it is.

The only predetermining condition between people who can balance work and play and those who cannot is allowing for new ideas and concepts to come to them. I’m not talking about the inspiration causing people to go do something, we’re talking about the inspiration you get from acknowledging yourself.

Some ideas make people want to go outward, but I have found that the most fulfilling ones are the intentions to go inward. To actually see what’s going on inside you.

I love Conan. He’s funny, smart, witty, and overall seems to be a genuinely good guy. The moment I became aware of Conan’s YouTube channel, I was hooked. Video after video I watched, laughing along with the audience at whatever shenanigans I was consuming. But about ten videos (give or take) in, I realized I wasn’t really laughing that much anymore. It wasn’t that the content wasn’t funny, but rather I was ignoring my own anxiety and distress.

A lot of us think that sitting in the middle of the tunnel and putting some music on the radio is going to move our car to the exit. But that’s not true. The only reason Conan is able to succeed and positively impact the people around him is because he simply is Conan. He’s mastered the art of being, because Mr. O’Brien is able to become whoever he needs to in order to work at a soul restaurant, enroll in a dance academy, or get a Harlem makeover, etc..

I’m sure that the man has a lot of inner work behind his belt, and even though that may not be the general vibe the audience sees, I’m sure that Conan has looked within himself to find answers to questions a lot of us struggle with. And though personal development can be complicated, the whole way of life is actually very logical; the internal state produces external results.

Music artists are a wonderful example. You know you’re listening to an Ariana Grande song because of how she makes you feel. It’s not really about the lyricism or production backing her vocals, it’s about how she pours who she is into her music. But some people never face themselves to uncover their own sense of being. A good question I like to ask myself is “How does it feel to be me right now?”. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it’s really amazing, but all of the time, it’s incredibly unique to me. And that’s the defining factor in not only being human, but just being. Every single person is undoubtedly and completely connected because they all are. You are not something, you just are. Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful quote about this.

“To be loved means to be recognized as existing.”

And this doesn’t mean that you have to exist for a particular thing. Harmful external habits like binge eating, smoking, and excessive drinking are just symptoms of the problem. Like a doctor would diagnose a patient who was coughing or sneezing with a cold, we can diagnose people with an imbalance in consumption with an internal need that is not being met. Whether it’s a lack of self-love, fulfilling relationships, or an absence of meaning, the first step- consequently the most crucial one- is to look within.

Looking within means dropping your tech, forgetting about performing daily tasks or constant mindfulness, and just letting whatever happens happen. When people are constantly doing something or taking action, they miss out on the fruits of (no) labor. I’d like to introduce a new form of procrastination, and we’re going to call it action..nation. The name definitely needs some work, so we’ll get to that later, but what this means is that too much action distracts us from our natural state. When productivity enters the mind, we forget that life is a constant balancing act between the head and the heart. Even though you are the consciousness using both as tools, we still need to connect with what each are trying to tell us. If you are constantly drowning out the sounds of your intuition and inner joy, everything will seem hollow with no life to fill it. Many people who have built a brand around combining entrepreneurship and ideas like inner knowing love to say, “Don’t let anybody else drown out your inner voice. Kick down the door and follow the path your heart lays out for you”. You could be drowning out your own inner voice.

You may be ignoring the person most knowledgeable about your own reality, and that’s your own self. So take the time to drop all expectations of what you “should” be, and just be whatever you are at the moment. That's completely fine, and you will find that it’s more rewarding than running and running and running some more. It’s time to come back to the place where you started, because where it all began is where it all stems from. Thank you.