It is New Year’s eve once again. It would be a cliché to say that it came too soon. Yet life does seem to be flitting by. We humans scatter hither and thither to make a living. I get several clients who come to me complaining of how lazy they are and enquire how they can motive themselves to become more productive. I look at how they spend their time and it usually turns out that they don’t have a minute to spare and are bursting at the seams with activities. Doing, doing and more doing. Compulsive doing. Then they find themselves browsing social media or Insta incessantly or falling ill which they call their “unproductive” time.
Our culture has
created human robots who get anxious when they stop doing. I ask the clients
about the narrative in their heads that spurs them on to keep doing. Invariably
they recollect parents or teachers who spotted them as children enjoying a
quiet moment of contentment or brilliant creativity and called it a “waste of
time” and to quickly switch to studying which is “the stuff that matters.”
Addictions are a
coping strategy to get away from the pain of not feeling okay. Many grownups
cannot spend a quiet moment anymore. We have come up with the term “boredom” to
normalize this condition. So, we pride ourselves in having a hectic life. Yet
deep within us there is the yearning to be, to just be. To connect intimately
with the moment, with nature, with the life that pulsates through us. It is a
state of still aliveness which I call “being.” The body-mind complex obliges
for a while to meet the cultural pressures. Then its natural impulses gather
force. There is a complete or partial breakdown as a result.
I usually startle
my clients when I tell them that the remedy is to do nothing and connect with
their innate creativity by feeling the life pulsating through them. They smile
when I tell them that we are human being and not human doing. I also invite
them to think of what is important to them in life. This New Year, I hope all
of us can find our unique balance of being and doing, orient our doing in the
way of our values and shine forth like the sparks of life we are.
