Doing NOTHING is sometimes EVERYTHING
I opened my eyes and found thousands of moments around me,
that I’ve been trying hard to catch with my eyes shut for so long.
Don’t you wonder how it feels like to wake up in the morning without the anxiety of all your piled-up work?
Don’t you wonder how different the coffee might taste when you are not running late for work?
The constant motivation and drive for doing everything are what pushes us to go out of our comfort level for doing something worthwhile. But, a coin has two sides. Being productive gives us a sense of purpose and something to look up to every day. When this drive for productivity crosses the threshold level, our body starts breaking, both physically and mentally. According to recent studies, the rates of depression, anxiety, and stress have skyrocketed, and are continuing to shoot up. The overwhelming feeling of not being able to cope up with ourselves is the repercussion of working intensively.
The main question is,
Why do we push ourselves so hard?
Our culture has always equated busyness with high status and moral virtue. Lazing around, checking Instagram feed, reading fiction books are an indication of not being as valuable to the world as those whose phones are always blowing up with work messages. Most of the time we want to be productive for being validated by society as an efficient human. But, this constant thirst for seeking validation ends up eating away our sense of self and deteriorates the overall quality of life. It’s not only the social pressure to stay busy, but also the fear of being alone with the noise of our intrusive thoughts. Cause who even wants to hear themselves think?
Most of us are so underconfident that we constantly need to work for reminding us how efficient we really are. The day I finish my work before a deadline and receive good reviews about it, there’s an outburst of confidence within me. But, on the days when I have absolutely no work and have all the free time in the world, I start feeling low and useless. Isn’t this the case with most of us?
Thankfully, this period of pandemic forced us to be at home and led us to introspection and retrospection. Speaking for most of the people, we all took a break from work and productivity during the initial period of lockdown. That was the moment when we all were mostly satisfied with ourselves and understood the actual meaning of it’s okay to do nothing sometimes. But, the fast-paced race of life eventually makes us forget about taking a break and just hustle until we don’t reach where we want to.
So let’s try bursting the bubble of over productivity and start exploring ourselves in different ways :
- Run those errands you have been leaving behind- finish off the errands that have been piling up for so long. Clean your room, run to the grocery store, refill your refrigerator or take out time for doing your laundry. This can be a way of showing self-care and being proud about accomplishing the tiny tasks of daily life.
- Unplug from the world and plug into your own world- Do what you love doing. Go out for some exercise or sit at home and paint something for yourself. Take out the time for relieving the stress of your day-to-day life.
- Get back to your social life- Go out with your friends and hang out for a day. Open yourself to the laughter and enjoy every moment as it comes by.
- Make it your Cheat Day- Eat whatever you want for one day, watch your favorite series or complete your daytime naps.
So what are you waiting for! drop your work for at least one day, pick up your phone and call that friend of yours, go out and treat yourself because sometimes, being still and enjoying the little moments in life opens the doors of opportunities for the greatest of changes.
