Doing nothing (returning 8/12)

Taking a break from daily writing; returning 8/12/24.

When a coworker asked me if I had any fun plans for an upcoming weekend, I told him that I was planning to read some books and take an online course.

“That’s an interesting notion of fun!” he responded.

I wasn’t offended at all; in fact he had a good point.

I grew with the strong belief that I always had to be doing something, and ideally that something was productive in some way.

This belief came into full force over the last couple of weeks, when I fell down the slippery slope of working later and later to get a project done.

I finally came to my senses and reset yesterday — closing the laptop early to give my mind and eyes a rest before day’s end.

I had the best sleep I’ve had in weeks, I broke a personal record at the gym this morning, and my mind feels noticeably less tense.

We live in an era where books like Getting Things Done is a top seller, and thousands of apps in the app store are bucketed under a featured category titled “Productivity” — we can all be forgiven for thinking that the entire enterprise of life is to do, do, do.

But what if it isn’t? Or, at least what if it doesn’t have to be like this all the time?

It’s okay to hit pause. Trust me when I say you have full permission from the universe to do this. Not only will you be fine, you’ll probably be much better for it.