to do nothing
It's Saturday, and it's raining in Montreal. My roommates are out, and I am sitting by myself in a big empty house, looking for my next hit of dopamine.
My work is quiet. Customers don't report bugs. There are no features in development. I'm not working on any side projects. I just had my breakfast, and I won't have to worry about food for the next three hours. My apartment is clean, so I don't need to vacuum or mop. My laundry is done. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do. And yet, I failed at doing nothing—I started writing this post.
Before opening my laptop, I sat in silence, listening to my brain. What is it telling me? "The apartment is clean, but maybe you could reorganize your closet? Or how about you check those listings on Marketplace, perhaps you could change the photos to make it stand out? Remember that idea of a project your friend mentioned, maybe you should research it? No? Hmm. And the date you have later tonight, did you follow up with her? Does she know where to meet you?"…
It never stops. It never will. The noise in our head is so loud, we pay attention to everything it says. If it is so loud, it must be important. But when everything is important, then nothing is important. Why do we pay so much attention to our thoughts? It urges us to run around doing things when we should just sit in silence and do absolutely nothing.
I recently learned about a simple exercise to calm my mind. Imagine that your thoughts have a physical shape, a body. Name it Joe. Or Becky. And Becky is your friend. When you sit on a couch, she sits next to you. Becky talks. Man, does she talk… Because Becky is your thoughts, she wants to say it all. She wants to tell you about your chores. About your date, and the missed bills. Tell you about the upcoming flights and that you forgot to call your mom, again. All she does is talk. "Blah blah blah… You should do this and that, yada yada…"
But Becky is always there. You can't run away from her. You can't put her in a shoebox and hide in a dark corner of your wardrobe. At best, you can silence her temporarily. That's what we do with alcohol and drugs. But then she'll come back, talking more and louder.
When you picture Becky, you learn two things. First, you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are Becky, and you are the one sitting on the couch, listening to her babble. Second, like with a very annoying friend, you don't have to listen to everything she has to say. You ignore her. She tells you to go to your room to organize your stuff, and you say "Thank you, Becky, it's organized well enough". She says, "Go call your mom", and you mutter "I called her yesterday, how about we do it tomorrow instead?". But most of the time you nod, "mm-hmm, uh-huh…", like you would with a friend you don't really want to listen to.
Half of the trouble in our world is caused by people doing stupid things instead of sitting peacefully with their thoughts. We create problems so we can get busy solving them. Like little hamsters, we find a wheel, so we keep running without moving anywhere. All that instead of standing aside and watching the wheel spin without us.
It's a rainy Saturday, and I have nothing to do. I will press the "Publish" button, close my laptop, and do nothing for two hours, until it's time to get ready for the date.
Thank you, Becky. You are doing great.