Sometimes the Answer Is “Nothing”
“When things are shaky, we are on the verge of something.”
Pema Chodron
The Hidden Messages in Distraction-Free Moments
How many times have you gone to the refrigerator, opened the doors despite not being hungry, and stared inside wondering, “What do I want to eat?” How many times have you felt bored and wondered, “What should I do?” or “Who should I call?” or “What should I watch on TV?” How many times have you found yourself feeling unsettled and ill at ease with how you are feeling or with your circumstances, and you look to distract yourself from feeling that way? You end up eating an unhealthy snack and doomscrolling. Later, you find yourself feeling those same unsettled feelings of boredom and dissatisfaction again.
If this happens to you, as it often does to me, I offer you an alternative. When you ask yourself a question like “What should I do?” it is OK to simply answer, “Nothing. I don’t need to do anything, eat anything, watch anything, or be with anyone. I just need to stop, take a breath, and allow myself to be—to breathe, feel my body, and embrace whatever I’m feeling as well as the impulse to distract myself from that feeling.” Try saying to yourself, “For whatever reason this feeling has come up and is part of my life. Rather than run away from it, let me try to see where it leads me.”
Recently, I have found that if I can be with the feeling and acknowledge it, without judging myself for feeling that way in the first place, it usually transforms itself into something else. For example, I may feel a vague sense of unease. When I sit with that feeling, I may realize I’ve got some butterflies regarding being a guest on an upcoming podcast, or worried that I’m behind in article writing and need some new ideas. The sense of unease may transform into excitement as I let myself think about the possibilities on either front. Sometimes the feeling transforms into the profoundly wonderful feeling of just being alive and not needing to do anything, or eat anything, or be anyone other than who I am. And sometimes it’s realizing something I haven’t seen before, a realization about my life or my past. But whatever happens, allowing myself to answer “nothing” and to stop the impulse to divert myself is usually a doorway that leads to something new.
Modern life has so many diversions built into it that it’s like an amusement park of options. From watching to eating to endless doing. While much of this activity is necessary and useful, an exceeding amount of it is nothing more than distraction from the world inside us and its endless wonder and possibility. When I can identify and resist the distractions, allowing myself to do nothing, this often brings big rewards.
Distractions are driven by unconscious habits that are the opposite of awareness. We can escape those unconscious habits by stopping and shedding light on them. Allowing yourself to do nothing—nothing but be—is the spark that illuminates that process. If I allow myself to pause and push aside diversions, I find that the seemingly urgent and nervous distractive energies lessen, and real inner awareness and inspiration replace them. I can feel the difference in the amount of space that comes to me inside myself. I feel a sense of having more time and less urgency. I might end up doing something that I hadn’t even thought of, like going for a walk, making myself a cup of tea, getting on the yoga mat, going to the gym, meditating, writing, or continuing to simply sit and contemplate this state of being. But whatever happens and whatever I end up doing, my actions are motivated from a place inside me that supports the feeling of being alive, not diverting myself from feelings of unease, boredom, or dissatisfaction.
“I Am Not Enough”: Society’s Hidden Message of Diversion
Take a close, unfiltered look, and you will see a hidden motive of our modern world: the need to make people feel they aren’t good enough as they are. In order to get people to use the product or service they are promoting, advertisers, social media companies, and mega-corporations need to convey the message that you will be better off and happier with their product or service. This translates to, “You are not good enough the way you are. If you buy this product, or live this life, or watch this news, or learn this new thing, or are as talented or rich or famous as the people you follow, or vote for this candidate, or bet on your favorite team, you will be happier, and your life will be better.”
In a previous article, I addressed the damage we are doing to ourselves by spending so much time online. Unfortunately, these messages of not being worthy enough, or complete enough, or simply not being enough are all too prevalent in modern life. These subliminal messages are everywhere. And they can creep into our psyches. In many cases, they echo and feed on deep-seated feelings of fear, low self-esteem, or inadequacy. In my case, deep-seated feelings from childhood stem from my father’s death when I was young and my mother’s overly critical attitude toward me. Working at restoring my self-worth and learning to love myself in the way I deserved to be back then has been a lifetime’s work and a big part of my later-life journey.
You Are Complete as You Are; You Already Have Everything You Need Inside You
Feeling whole and complete is no easy task under any circumstances. It has been the work of sages, philosophers, and psychologists throughout human history. But the relentless assault of modern life’s negative messages has brought a new dimension to our task of trying to feel whole and complete. Its 24/7 demands on our time and energy, and especially its manipulation of our emotions, raise challenges our ancestors never encountered. So, distracting ourselves from engaging with life (with the depth of how we feel and what’s important to us) has become the easier path to take. The price we pay in doing so is the diminishment of our own radiant power of awareness. That power lies inside us, not outside.
Instead of seeking distraction, let the universe come to you by living with what it presents to you. While this may make life more challenging, it is also more meaningful and heartfelt and makes life worthwhile. The only real path that I have found to work is not the worldly path of mindless distractions but the inner path of mindful awareness. There is no worldly or inner obstacle that inner resolve and inspiration can’t tackle. The qualities you see and admire in others can be yours. It requires a combination of discipline, self-benevolence, and courage. If life has anything to offer as a wonderful conclusion to your later-life years, spend some time with these qualities and see how they resonate with you. This is engagement with real, living, breathing life. It’s the real deal and not the amusement park.
