I had a fear that didn’t become clear to me until recently: the fear of doing nothing. What I mean by doing nothing is literally doing nothing - no TV, social media or any external factors affecting you. I didn’t consider it problematic because I thought it was normal to feel this way, but after feeling pressured to avoid it, I realized I was more afraid to face it.
I realized this when I got bored of being on my computer, scrolling on my phone and feeling like I just wanted to do nothing. I tried to relax for one second. In that moment of silence, I became overwhelmed with thoughts, going on a loop to find an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. But when I started to realize what I was thinking about, it didn’t mean anything because most of them were made-up scenarios in my head or random thoughts that would just pop up, leading me to nothing. So then I decided to write whatever came to mind, but the moment I decided to write, all thoughts faded, silence again appeared, and clarity began. It sounds a bit cheesy and poetic, but it helped to realize that when we do nothing, we start thinking without a cluttered mind.
But after that moment of silence and clarity, I questioned what made me not be in this mindset. I wondered if I was not open to listening to myself. Or it could be that I was avoiding what I needed to hear by overthinking things to find a way around whatever I had to think about. The way that I am describing this may sound unclear, or it may be unexplainable. However, with all this, I noticed how the time I spent on social media or watching something stupid was time I was using to avoid doing nothing, even if I thought I was. But I had this subconscious idea that I always have to be busy. I always have to be doing something to feel as though I am getting closer to a goal. But what is that goal? I have no idea. It isn’t like we are always doing things to get closer to something we want to achieve, but there are moments when we should learn how to remain still. Coming to realize that I feared doing nothing by avoiding it made me waste more time and energy than simply allowing my whole self to relax. And let me tell you, facing that fear was a bit hard at first, I am still getting used to it, but it just feels like a relief to do absolutely nothing.
So, I invite you to do absolutely nothing, sit in silence. Allow your overwhelming thoughts, the obsession of keeping yourself busy or scrolling on socials to see what is happening in the world every two seconds to just do nothing for a moment. When you realize that silence brings more clarity than going over something repeatedly and is more relaxing than stressful, it helps to feel at peace.
Z.
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