18 May A breakthrough study revealed something too many of us have forgotten: the power of doing nothing
I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to achieve things.
Productivity is the “gold medal” in our society. And that’s kind of OK.
I like being productive, I like helping others be productive. It leads to satisfaction and achievement which are important forms of positive emotion.
But that being said, I’ve always wished I could be better at doing nothing. Because there’s much good research that supports the idea that doing nothing, in an appropriate way, is very important for our health and wellbeing.
Finding that balance, between doing and being, is what should be the gold standard we all aim for.
If you’ve also struggled with this conundrum, then keep reading this Upworthy article by Tod Perry …
We seem to have forgotten how to perform one of the most popular behaviors throughout human history, nothing. The closest we come to it these days is sleeping or resting. But when was the last time you did absolutely nothing?
When was the last time you stared out of a window for a long period of time? Can you remember the last time you sat in a park and just looked around? Have you ever just laid on your back and looked deep into the sky?
We live in a world where something is expected of us every moment. Either we’re working, socializing, cooking, cleaning, eating, drinking, traveling, scrolling through social media, or watching television. We’re always going somewhere or trying to get something.
We live in a culture that abhors doing nothing which is evident in our frantic work schedules and constant need to be entertained.
Imagine if you had the monk-like peace of mind to just put a stop to all of the doing and lived completely in what Eckhart Tolle calls “The Now.” Seems impossible, right?
In the “Tao Te Ching,” philosopher Lao Tzu challenges people to balance all of the something they’re constantly up to by also learning to embrace the nothing. “When nothing is done, nothing is left undone,” the philosopher famously said.
Dr. Manvir Singh, a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse and a Ph.D. from Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, called attention to our inability to do nothing on Twitter recently.
Dr. Singh shared a tweet thread that highlighted a study from the ‘70s and ‘80s in small-scale non-industrial societies where researchers noted activities people engaged in throughout the day. The shocking fact—at least from today’s perspective—is that idling or “doing nothing” was one of their favorite activities…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE