Carlie is an over-achieving teenager. She’s driven to excel academically, athletically and socially. She has trouble with that word “relax.” But in a moment of clarity, she wowed me with this:
“I would like to know my future to see if I’m wasting my time, because if I am wasting my time, I want to waste it better.”
It’s sad that a stressed-out state can feel normal to us, so much so that it feels wrong to be free of it. Let’s face it, our culture values and encourages busyness over taking time to smell the roses. Busyness is easily equated with productivity, purposefulness and meaningfulness. To do otherwise is deemed wasting one’s time.
This is all wrong! Squirrels are incessantly busy—aimlessly darting here and there—but I wouldn’t necessarily call that busyness productive, purposeful or much less meaningful. The same applies to us humans.
In contrast, soaking up a sunset can be one of the most productive, purposeful and meaningful things we can do.
It’s not a waste of time to waste some time!
Names are changed to honor client confidentiality
I found my self on spring break vacation in doing mode. I’m so used to a fast paced day, that my mind and body were like relaxing, what’s that. I want to get x,y, and z done in the beginning of the week, so I could fully relax. Then I told myself if I don’t get any of it done this week that’s ok. It’s my vacation. On the weekends now and during spring break I didn’t beat myself up for sleeping in. Before, I used to be hard on myself for not doing anything or sleeping in. Now I see it as my time to take care of me. I find that I have a hard time with meditating because I feel and want to get other things accomplished. However, I’m realizing meditating is doing something and probably the most productive thing I can do. Relaxing can take work especially in our culture. It’s probably the most productive thing we can do for ourselves, especially when we’re perfectionist or type A personality.
I like that!