Take Some Time To Do Nothing

There is something quietly powerful in doing nothing. Not laziness, not idleness, but a kind of gentle pausing. A kind of breathing room. That is what Jon Kabat-Zinn has tried to teach so many of us through the years. And it is something I understand now more than ever, though I learned it late.

When I was younger, I rushed everywhere. I rushed to teach during the day and to my job as an adjunct professor in the evening. I rushed through meals and through conversations. I rushed to be trained in psychotherapy and rushed to my own therapy, because that too was required. I rushed through fatherhood. I rushed through marriage. Not because I didn’t care, but because I thought that was what I had to do. I thought working hard meant being a good man.

And to be honest, I did succeed in many ways. I supported my family. I earned degrees. I became a psychotherapist. I taught students. I helped people. But I also missed so many quiet and beautiful moments.

My wife is gone now, taken too soon by cancer. My twin daughters are grown women with lives of their own. I am now in my eighties, living in a senior community, trying my best to find my balance every day, both literally and emotionally. I do not blame my health on my rushing. But I do look back and see what all that rushing cost me.

It cost me mornings spent lingering at the table with my wife. It cost me after-school talks with my girls while they were still small. It cost me sunsets and slow walks. It cost me the simple joy of being still and feeling the breath move in and out of my body without having to be anywhere at all.

That is why I want to say something now, not out of regret but out of hope. If you are younger than I am, if you are still caught up in the whirlwind of work and ambition and errands and obligations, I want you to hear this. Stop once in a while. Pause. Sit with your coffee. Watch your child laugh. Take a slow walk with your partner. Watch the sky change. Do nothing for a little while.

And if you’re not sure how to begin, try this. Find thirty minutes in your day to sit quietly. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out without trying to change anything. Let your thoughts drift by like clouds. Let the world soften around you. This is called meditation, but you can think of it simply as resting your spirit. It may seem like doing nothing, but it is deeply something. It is a return to yourself.

Doing nothing is not wasted time. It is the way we find our way back to ourselves. It is where we remember who we love and why we work and what truly matters.

My life is not a tragedy. I have been blessed in so many ways. But if I could go back and speak to that younger version of myself, I would tell him to slow down. I would tell him the work will get done, but the little hand-holding moments and bedtime stories and slow Sunday mornings will not wait forever.

So I am saying it now to you. Even as you go about your journey, even as you reach for your dreams, take time to do nothing. Take time to live your life, not just rush through it. That is the real success.

And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us learn to do that, we will not only be healthier and happier, but we will be more present for one another. More loving. More whole.

That is the lesson I have learned. And it is the one I offer to you with an open heart.