The Importance of Doing Nothing

Last Christmas I was fortunate enough to have a month on a dairy farm in New Zealand. This was with a very special family that I first visited in Christmas 2005 which subsequently turned in to me staying with them until August 2006!

We connected.

We fit.

We worked.

To re-establish the connection with them over Christmas by spending time in their midst was the most precious gift to me.

It was family.

And to be amongst them especially around the first year anniversary of losing my beloved spiritual mother, was the most healing and restorative experience.

I could just be.

At first they seemed surprised by my ability to simply sit and stare out the window. But then they realised that I hadn’t lost the plot, I was simply practising the art of doing that glorious thing called no-doing, or nothing!

Effectively, I was doing the equivalent of a phone being on recharge.

It helped that as the farm is situated amongst the green rolling countryside, the view out of every window was pretty spectacular. The assortment of fruit tree’s heavy laden with produce just added to the paradise feel of the place.

And, it gave me immense pleasure to use some of these fresh from the tree’s ingredients to bake all kind of goodies for such an appreciative, quick to devour style audience. As well as producing endless cups of very English tea.

I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful place to simply be with family enjoying cups of tea, long meals, walks and film nights.

It was a real wrench to leave them again having been blessed beyond belief by their gift of time and family.

But of course, life was calling and I had to return.

Having been gifted with the chance to recharge my batteries, I returned to my life with a fresh vigour and renewed capacity for all the things that I love to do. So I hit the ground running and threw myself whole heartedly in to them all.

This has been great. 

But, just because I am no longer on holiday does not mean that the need for appropriate amounts of time and space to do nothing has disappeared. And having failed to schedule in enough of either, I was reminded last week that I need to slow down, pace myself better and guard my times to just be. Despite loving all the things I do, the need to also do nothing remains.

I know this stuff but how easy it is to forget. Or to get it wrong as my need for rest alongside my capacity for productivity are not static. I am delightfully aware that my capacity for all is significantly increased this year but I am not yet getting the corresponding balance of rest time quite right.

An article I read the other week also reminded me of the need to do nothing. Apparently the current trend amongst young people has shifted from YOLO – you only live once along with the FOMO – fear of missing out, on to JOMO – the joy of missing out!

And there was me thinking that such a joy, along with an appreciation for staying in and early nights, only arrives with the onset of middle age!

Apparently not as it would seem that even our young folk are realising that non-stop activity no matter how interesting, fun or on trend, is neither enjoyable nor sustainable.

We are returning to the age old wisdom that understands that in order to perform at our peak, we require times of inactivity.

The importance of rest or wall gazing time is for me at least, paramount. It allows me to process and to regenerate the creative juices. Without which I can find myself at a total standstill, feeling blocked. Not dissimilar to when my laptop freezes and refuses point blank to do anything.

I was reflecting upon this the other day when my laptop was going decidedly slow. I performed that high tech restorative operation of switching it off and on again, which appeared to breathe new life and speed in to it.

Gosh, I thought, if even technology needs to be completely switched off from time to time to allow it to function well, how much more must us humans?

It would seem that in order to prevent us from unwittingly slowing down, freezing or even crashing, we need to schedule in time to switch off from the constant stimulation of work, technology and modern day living.

In other words, we need to make time to be.

Be with God.

Be with family/friends.

Be alone.

But just be.

To this end, alongside a refusal to fill all the gaps in my diary, I’ve begun booking coastal retreats for the next few months.

I aim to try harder to remember the need and the joy of missing out, by developing, planning, monitoring and practising the art of doing nothing!