Mother of Ruts — How Do You Get Out? 🦥
I got in a rut this week. I’ve done nothing but smoking all day, staring at charts and writing things I end up scraping 30 minutes later.
Usually after 4–5 days of this, I find my way out. I wage some kind of bet on myself to get up at 5AM. And once I can get up at 5, everything else falls into place. I go right back into my routine as if I hadn’t missed a beat.
But it hasn’t always been this easy.
My rut used to last weeks and months. At times, I’d gain 20 lbs before I started starving myself. My life used to be a constant oscillation of being in a rut and making hopeless attempts at escaping them.
Nobody would’ve guessed that I needed help.
I was in a good relationship. We bought a house and had good jobs. I could eat somewhere nice every week. I had friends to drink with through the nights and enough subscriptions to never run out of shows to watch.
Happiness is simple. It means having nothing to be unhappy about. Right?
But after ten years of doing everything in my power to remove every unhappiness imaginable, I stood on the peak of it all and found myself asking:
What now?
First, I tried to double down. I got busier, worked harder and found more things to grind away.
I fell for the siren call of the hustle culture. I did it time and again. I imagine you do too at some point because it’s the most straightforward answer.
But now thinking back on it — it was pure silliness.
If the answer to our problems are the most obvious one, why would so many people struggle?
More than once, I ended up with the same result:
After the high of productivity set in and the excitement of goal chasing faded — which usually took a few months — I’d fall into another rut.
Even worse. I was in a rut and I was burnt out.
At the brink of insanity, I tried doing the complete opposite.
I did nothing.
And somehow, the more nothing I did, the clearer life became.
Think about the last time you took a road trip. You want to get from your house to this beautiful destination. You’ve got it all mapped out. Now all you gotta do is get in the car and drive. And every time you go off map or stay still, it’s counterproductive to getting where you want to go, right?
But that’s what fuel stops are. The act of stopping the car seems counterintuitive when you’re trying to get somewhere. But you do it because you know that if you don’t, the car will stop moving whether you want it to or not.
The fuel that you need is nature, stillness and silence.
When was the last time you actually did nothing?
No scrolling, no listening to something, not even reading.
You just walk somewhere in nature, and then when you find a spot you like, you sit.
And then you just sit there. You let the endless streams of thoughts ebb and flow. You listen to the silence of nature that’s trying to tell you everything you need to know.
Then you do it again. And again.
Then all of a sudden, your head is clear. Things that seemed so important don’t matter as much. And you gain space to narrow down the exact step you need to take.
Nature has a way of humbling us. She reminds us that the big questions in life can’t be answered with fancy degrees.
Connect with her. Let her perplex you. Let her make you feel utter confusion. It’s the first step in the right direction.
Every time I find myself resisting the urge to stop working at the same problem, I think about the late Thich Nhat Hanh — the renowned Vietnamese Zen master who influenced business leaders, politicians, and academics world wide.
I think about CEOs and the likes of people in high positions of power who have sought the wisdom of monks throughout history.
People who are constantly doing and thinking heeding advice from men who have done nothing.
The lesson is so obvious.
When you master your inner world, your outer world begins to fall into place — regardless of your circumstances.
That’s why men who spend their whole life trying to control their outer worlds are nothing but fools before the man who owns nothing yet has everything.
So take the time to recenter.
And have the courage to face the sunrise at least once a week with both confidence and vulnerability of someone who’s ready to embrace the unknown.
And that’s exactly what I’m doing for the rest of the day — nothing.
Whether it’s on the beach or in my backyard, you will find me doing absolutely nothing today.
And tomorrow, I will rise and wait for the sun again. And all will be well.
