The Tyranny Of Doing

Have you ever tried to take a little time out from one of your typical busy days, and sit quietly, doing nothing?

I am not talking about when you collapse on the sofa at the end of the day exhausted. Nor when you stop working on one particular job only to shift your attention to the next thing that needs to be done, or even to your favorite hobby. Rather, I am asking you if you have ever paid attention to the internal dialogue that happens, when you simply attempt to refrain from doing anything. 

I attempt this regularly and am always amazed at how much conditioning I have to move on to the next task, accomplish something else, or generally keep moving and productive. My mind is quite unsettled at the prospect of doing nothing, and puts up a very good fight.  There is no end of ideas that come to mind regarding what I might do next, what I might want more of, what I might not want to happen later, etc.  And if I manage to ignore all those thoughts auditioning for attention, there can come some judgement thoughts about being lazy, or even some anxiety feeling that I might be somehow wasting my time or falling behind the rest of the world.  

The point is, we are highly conditioned organisms. At an early age we are taught the importance of delaying gratification. We dutifully learn how to focus on the task at hand, study hard, compete, accomplish, produce, acquire, achieve, etc.  Our sense of self and social status is often deeply defined by what we do, and we take pride in how much we can accomplish in any particular, day, month, or year.  After a few decades of practice we become world champion doers. Doing is us.  And along the way, we forget how to be.

Can you even remember a few moments where you enjoyed the complete simplicity and wonder of your childhood, before “doing” became a religion? Playing with your favorite toy? Splashing in the bathtub? Enjoying an ice-cream cone? Staring at the clouds or stars?

You are not a human doing. You are in fact a human being.  Being is not something you want to dip a toe into occasionally, when time permits.  It is the ocean you want to dive into. Indeed it is where you want to live from.  It is who you are.

Forget this and life turns into an endless treadmill of unsatisfying accomplishment.

Remember this, and you can reconnect with the source of all vitality, and you can still function as necessary in the world of doing. 

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