Sometimes Should Doing Nothing Be What We Should Be Doing?
The constant go-go-go of our culture isn’t healthy or sustainable.
I frequently write about the need for action. If you desire to make any changes in your life, you must act. Conscious reality creation, mindfulness, and any work to manifest anything you desire requires you to do something.
Rather than living life passively, going with the flow, and allowing life to just live you – taking action, doing something – is how you can be in control of who, what, where, how, and why you are.
However – it’s also necessary to pause, take stock, and simply be – without actively doing.
While it’s empowering to be an active participant in your life experience – and to practice active, conscious awareness – sometimes doing nothing is what we should be doing.
Isn’t that counterproductive?
No. But lots and lots of messages in the world today will tell you that it is.
Look around you. Messages that inundate you from TV, billboards, social media, your email inbox, and everywhere you look hype constantly doing. Go here, do that, taste this, experience those, work that, travel here, go there. Do, take, act, work. Keep going, don’t stop. Rest is for the weak. You can rest when you’re dead.
All of these messages imply or state outright that a constant state of action is the key to it all. Success, wealth, joy, happiness – do something, or you can’t have them.
I’ve been a regular proponent of doing. Acting. Taking action. You can’t have, be, or do jack shit without action. And this remains true of active mindfulness to control your life experience, as well as anything that goes into conscious reality creation.
However, that’s intentional action. There is a time and place for intentional action. You move yourself to action as the final step of practical mindfulness.
It begins with thought. An idea. A notion. Some concept. Then, feeling. What and how do I feel when I have that thought? What emotion does that idea, notion, or concept evoke? This moves to intent. How do you take the thought, and apply feeling to it with intent? Now you have action.
Intentional action is not just for the sake of doing something. There’s a goal and purpose to it. But can you be in action all the time?
No.
Sometimes doing nothing is what we should be doing
Human beings are not designed to be on the go all the time. We need to rest and recuperate. Without proper rest and restoration, we suffer.
Sometimes, that means that doing nothing is what we should be doing.
What is nothing? It can take many forms. These include productive, counter-productive, passive, and neutral.
Productively doing nothing might include reading nonfiction, taking an online course, listening to a podcast, conversing with a subject matter expert, meditating, or anything of this ilk that includes doing little to nothing. There’s positive intention in the nothing of this.
Counter-productively doing nothing might include smoking, eating when you’re not hungry, reading comments on social media, watching the news for hours on end, avoiding or putting off work you desire to do for no apparent reason, and the like. There’s negative intention – if there’s any intention – in the nothing of this.
Passively doing nothing is literally doing nothing. You might just be sitting somewhere – intentionally or not – and being. Maybe you’re just petting a cat or dog, listening to music in the background, riding as the passenger in a vehicle, or just doing nothing specific. There’s no intention here, and it’s neither positive nor negative.
Neutrally doing nothing might include things like reading fiction, intentionally watching a movie or TV show, playing a game, meditating, and is very similar to passively doing nothing. The difference between passive and neutral is intent. The former is without, while the latter has something behind it.
All of the above examples are interchangeable. Meditation can be counter-productive, playing a game can be productive, petting a cat or dog can be neutral, and putting off work can be passive.
But, you might argue, all of these are somethings, not nothings. Are they, though?
Defining nothing
Productivity tends to focus on results. Tangible or intangible, material or immaterial, productive work – doing something – results in something.
Maybe you create a tangible something. Perhaps you develop a new, intangible way to calm a racing mind. Whatever the case might be, there’s a result.
Doing something is about producing results. Lots of the notions in the section above don’t produce results. That’s what makes them nothing.
At least, in the context of productivity, they’re doing nothing. But the truth is that, apart from sleeping, we’re seldom doing nothing at all.
Doing nothing productive is necessary to reset ourselves. What’s more, the constant need to build, build, build – go, go, go – takes a toll on us. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, we can only be productive some of the time, not all the time.
This is why sometimes doing nothing is what we should be doing. Naps and sleep included.
It’s essential that we refuel. Even the finest, most fuel-efficient car on the planet can only go so far without refueling. The human vehicle, without sufficient fuel, will cease functioning, too. Only rather than sputtering out in the middle of the road, you’ll have a mental breakdown, get sick, suffer depression or anxiety, or some horrific combination of all these consequences.
If nothing is defined as not being productive – can you see how doing nothing isn’t such a bad thing?
Normalizing doing nothing starts with you and me
It’s taken me a while to embrace the power of doing nothing. For a long time, I believed that if I wasn’t being productive, I was actively contributing to failing at anything I set my mind to.
Wrapping my head around the importance of doing nothing for health, wellness, and wellbeing is not easy. It feels counter to a lot of the work I’ve been doing over the years – and the messages the world lobs my way daily.
Yet I increasingly see how the always-on, constant drive for productivity ideal isn’t ideal. It’s unsustainable – because human beings need rest.
What’s more, if your idea of ultimate success includes owning a luxury yacht, do you think you could enjoy it without doing nothing but being on your yacht at sea somewhere?
I am a human, being. So are you. Sometimes just being – rather than doing – is what we should be doing. Rest in whatever form it takes – and just being without doing – refuels, rejuvenates, and restores us.
Society won’t shift its collective consciousness this way via groupthink. It will only shift when individuals – you, me, our friends, and family – start normalizing doing nothing and being okay with that. When you and I accept this and apply it – and it does us good – others might take it on for themselves.
I know it’s cliché – but be the change you wish to see. Recognize, acknowledge, accept, and embrace doing nothing from time to time. Doing nothing is never truly nothing – it’s something for our overall better health, wellness, and wellbeing.
Can you see how doing nothing might be doing something good – rather than bad – for you and your life?
This is the six-hundred and seventeenth (617) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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