Non-doing

It's so funny to see people who are always on the go, doing nothing substantial or meaningful, yet, always being busy. They are so obviously out of love with themselves that they have to fill every moment of awake time doing SOMETHING. If, God forbid, they have a moment in their day to themselves, they start to shake like a smoker who needs a cigarette.

That was totally me, without a doubt, and I think that's why it affects me so much when I am around people who are like that now. It's frustrating because it ends in a crash almost a million times out of a million. It happened down here with my Dad getting sick. Between Dad and his wife they both move at a thousand miles an hour, yet neither of them go anywhere, and nothing they do changes anything.

I'm not talking about work, or sports, or anything like that -- anything recreational. I mean those moments when you're home, and the options are to go out and shop, buying things you don't need, or cleaning something that really doesn't need to be cleaned. The other option is to just sit, and breathe, and take everything in. Be mindful of the things around you. Live and love life. Enjoy yourself. That sounds so simple, yet, it seems like it's so rare.

Spiritually, I believe that my Dad getting sick was a sign that things need to slow down, but it is breaking my heart that the lesson has gone right over their heads. Briefly, it all came crashing down, and that could have been permanent. What would have been left? Remembering those amazing moments that you've had together, or obsessing that there are a couple empty fucking glasses in the sink and that the vacuum needs to be run?

There can be so many more of those moments of being...presence...and it really is that easy -- you just have to let them happen. This is doing by non-doing. I will guarantee one thing to anybody -- constantly going, going, going is not the way to live.

I love traveling more than anything on the planet. I traveled like a mother all the way through my early twenties, but, that slowed to a halt. What started to happen was I began working so much that when I wasn't working, I felt a subtle guilt stirring underneath me. When I was involved in something I loved doing, the joy was not what it used to be because of that underlying guilt. "I could be getting this set up right now...I could pick up a shift and have that much more money to put into savings, or to pay off the couch, etc..." It's a vicious cycle of racing thoughts that rob you of your essential self.

I stop myself a lot now when I start doing that stuff and I ask myself the simplest question ever, and answering it is supremely easy. "Would 12-year old me think what I am doing now is awesome?" The answer to that was always a resounding yes in my early 20's, but the answer has been no for a really, really long time. The easiest way to stifle that question is to keep busy -- doing.

You can't change other people, it's not your job, and it's usually not welcomed (even though those same folks have NO FUCKING PROBLEM telling you what you need to change or what you're doing wrong). What you can do is shut them out, and I'm getting good at doing that. Hell, if I'm the only one that pulled something out of the horror that has been the last two months, that's great, but it makes me sad because I'm not the one that the lesson was intended for.

July 15th....that's how it gets fixed permanently. For now, it's work, Amos Lee, reading, writing, the gym and Netflix on Demand for me. Resistance is futile -- to say anything would be to dump gallons of water into the ocean.