The Cult of Doing

Living > Being > Doing

If there’s a word that defines today, it’s “doing”. Doing has become a kind of cult. Every age has its totems, and our tallest is doing. We evaluate everything, whether ideas, people, careers, in terms of doing. What they’re doing. What they “do” for us. And in all this obeisance to doing, we don’t often stop to think, reflect, feel, wonder, imagine.

I think doing is a myth. A particularly harmful one.

“Doing” is a line at a bar. Living is falling in love.

The real challenge in life isn’t “doing”. It’s simpler, and much harder. Living. Not just doing things that make us wince, frown, grit our teeth. Nor just strolling through the park smelling the flowers, making time to be idle, though that’s vital. But really being here, fully alive, awake, aware.

Let me try to explain what I mean, with four kinds of aliveness.

Reacting. Most of our “doings” are just reactions. This person said this, wanted this, did this. Now I do this. Just go ahead and ask yourself honestly how much of your life is reaction. 80%? 90%?

Reaction is a poor way to live. You can have glimmers of delight, sure. But you’re not really free, right? Without freedom, happiness isn’t genuine, chosen, earned, owned. So by doing mindlessly we’re already further from fulfillment.

Responding. Most of the rest of our doings a are responses. This person needs this, my boss said this. Or they’re responses to us. Our little egos, which contain our fear and anxieties. I’m afraid of not being liked, so.

Response is a little wiser than reaction. At least we’re consciously choosing. But not much better. Because we’re still limited to chose.

True freedom isn’t choosing between five hundred kinds of stuff at the big box store. It’s not having to go in the first place, right? In the same, your freedom isn’t choosing the “right” response, it’s not having to choose at all. That’s when happiness really begins. You can walk away, say no, live life on your terms, not just theirs. But if all you’re engaged by is doing, you probably can’t, right?

The real challenge in life isn’t “doing”. It’s simpler, and much harder. Living. Not just doing things that make us wince, frown, grit our teeth. Nor just strolling through the park smelling the flowers. Making time to be idle, though that’s vital, too. But really being here, fully alive, awake, aware. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Being. When we’re being, were effortless, natural, graceful. “Doing” is always clunky, awkward, clumsy. Why? When we’re being, there’s no my action and your action, my reaction and your reaction. There’s just one whole. No separation between action and reaction, subject and object.

You might think this all sounds philosophical. It’s not. Think of a great conversation, a walk with a loved one, a time you were absorbed in work, and so on. There was no sense of “doing”, right? There was just interacting. My reaction might have anticipated and preceded your action, and so on, like the blind Zen swordsman.

We can’t really get to this state of effortless being if we’re doing. We have to focus on the being. In being, we surrender all our judgments of good and bad, all our ideas of right and wrong, and let mind go.

Moving. Beyond being there is moving. Think of falling in love. It’s a kind of inner moving, right, a profound and real sense?

What is moving? Not your mind. It’s not even really there. But your spirit. That is how it communicates with you. By moving.

When you are making a mistake, it sinks. When you are accomplishing something, it swells. When growing, it tingles. When there is love, it falls. Into infinity.

We call all this “intuition” or “gut”, because we actually feel these sensations in our bellies, right? It is really our spirit trying to tell us something. Something vast and true.

What we should really be doing in this little life. What our paths really are.

But if we are “doing” first, without hearing the spirit, were like blind people trying to find our paths. To listen to our spirits, we have to just be, so it can move. In its movement, and only in its movement, should we do.

Your spirit swells. Now go do this career. Your spirit sinks. Don’t do that project. Your spirit falls. Go date that person. Your spirit freezes. Stay far away from them. And so on.

Now we are really here. We are not just doing anymore. We began with being. We let our deepest selves move, so they could guide us. And now we are walking our paths.

Umair

London

June 2016