“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.”
– Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher
“Don’t just do something, stand there!”
– Dick Heston, American farmer and philosopher (1933-2002)
One of my favorite directives is that we ought not to wear our busy-ness as a badge of honor. Even though sometimes, we can be pretty dang busy!
When we’re working, we pack a lot in to lots of our days, but is it the right stuff that we’re packing? I love to read, but it’s been several days since I’ve read. Wall Street Journal, books, articles, Harvard Business Review – seems I’ve had some busy days, without even the time to read or think. Shame on me.
In other words, are we busy, or are we busy doing nothing? Is today a day where we just have to do something, or is there time to just stand there?
Dad had two places where he “just stood there.” One was leaning on the gate, watching the calves eat their feed. The other wasn’t standing at all. It was sitting in his chair, looking out the window, up the driveway and across the pasture, toward the road. The mind was churning, but the body was still.
Do we allow ourselves time (or a place) to “do nothing?” The kind of nothing where we’re just letting things sort themselves out in our mind, so that whatever the next something it is that we do, matters?
Maybe our best bet to make a difference today is to spend a little less time being busy, and a little more time in quiet, thought, reflection…
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