Fitting that I write this blog on a day where I really don’t feel like doing anything (lol).

We live in a very plugged-in world. Things are nonstop. Rapid fire. Social media spews five different opinions at you in a matter of seconds–five different kinds of content, in different styles, with different faces, different songs—

Different,

Different,

Different.

And that gets exhausting. It’s no wonder I get so many headaches. In my book, relaxing = scrolling. Actually, I think a lot of us think like that, but underneath we know. We know we’re missing on something.

Actually, we’re missing nothing.

Nothing is something.

I’ve talked about wasting time. I’ve touched on free time and how we take it too seriously.

But nothing?

Nothing is sooooo worthwhile.

I bet a bunch of you are familiar with the ever-beloved “floor time.” Sometimes you just need to lie on the floor and do nothing. No karaoke, no YouTube–no stimuli except what you can see and hear in the natural world. Sometimes you just have to be.

There’s something so refreshing about just sitting outside in a patch of sunlight for ten minutes. About not having anywhere to be, anything to do, or anything to say for just a little while. You just breathe and think and know.

So, stop it. Stop moving. Stop running around. Stop worrying about everything that needs to happen and everything that hasn’t happened yet. I know it’s corny to say “just breathe” but honestly, I need the reminder sometimes.

All or nothing.

I’m very task oriented. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. If I don’t know where to start or how to start or what to start with, I just don’t start. I want to do it right, or not at all. “Better to never start than not nail it.” And we could get into techniques on how to not procrastinate, or into ADHD paralysis, or into anything and everything about not starting. But that’s not the point.

The point is that nothing can be so good for you.

And I know nothing can be scary. That’s because it’s you. It’s us. We live in a distraction culture. We spend nearly every day consuming gallons of content that says, “Hey, look at this thing that happened, and think about this other thing, and oh look you’re missing out with this other other thing!” And so we then guzzle more gallons to counteract all that. Those gallons say, “Hey, don’t look over there, don’t worry about that, look at this thing! Think about these other things! Look over here, not over there!”

And I guess distractions have their place.

But we can’t hide from our own minds forever.

Ain’t no thing.

Take five minutes to just be. Don’t make up a task list in your head. Don’t put on music with lyrics. Don’t think about yesterday, don’t think about tomorrow, just be.

And don’t worry about it. Like I said before: don’t worry about being efficient. Efficiency at the cost of rest isn’t really that efficient, if you ask me.

If you’re looking for instrumental music to do nothing to, I recommend the album “Explorer” by Andrew Gialanella. Good stuff.

Have fun with nothing!

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