walking the line of doing and being
We can’t sprint forever. We have to catch our breath.
My whole life, I have always been a big do-er. I like to experience things, set goals, make things happen, do well, meet people, learn things, etc. I have always been drawn to action – to the DOING side of living. I rarely saw the value in letting myself just BE when I didn’t have something urgent I needed to do. I always found something new to fill my time. This past week, I stumbled upon a quote which really struck me:
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
I had to read it a few times before it fully sunk in. I think I was mostly taken aback by the word “barren”, and its correlation to being non-fruitful. I tend to focus on creating fruitful relationships and experiences – ones which bring us joy, introduce us to new people and teach us new things. The intention of the quote is to say that being in a constant state of motion makes it extremely difficult to distill these organic, unexpected moments – the ones which often end up being boundlessly fruitful. It is impossible to embrace the spontaneity and natural sway of life when we are so zeroed in on moving forward, constantly. I am all for forward motion, but there is definitely something to be said for slowing down and letting ourselves catch our breath when working towards something. This change of pace creates space for us to become conscious of where we are instead of solely focusing on where we are going. This space creates room for thought, room for awareness, and room for being present, bringing our attention to the people and experiences around us, which likely won’t even make it into our periphery if all we’re doing is looking straight ahead.
Pressing pause on our non-stop hustle for a few moments is often exactly what we need to regenerate some motivation and fulfill our need for human interaction. Taking this space reminds us why we are so driven, and allows us to genuinely enjoy the hustle when we start back up again. Our society glorifies being busy. For some reason, we have begun to overvalue busyness, blurring the line between movement and progress.
So often, we think the only way to get things done, is to keep doing – add more activities to our plate, more hours to our work periods, more meetings and tasks and ways to fill our time. But is that really the answer? Why are we so inclined to continue doing, and constantly avoid taking a step back to compliment all of this with just letting ourselves BE. “Were human beings not human doings.” When we have a lot going on, it is definitely more challenging to recognize the value in letting ourselves BE instead of filling our days with everything we need to do. But I have recently learned that in order to be fully intentional in the pursuits which add value to our lives, we also need to be intentionally unintentional at times. Oftentimes, taking a step back and embracing a situation or opportunity that might not seem “necessary” or “productive” can be extremely beneficial to our overall happiness and productivity. By being intentionally unintentional, we discover what we instinctively gravitate to when we’re not forcing ourselves to sit down and DO. It is in our moments of just being where we find out what naturally fascinates us.
Finding our natural fascination is incredibly important, and arguably the most essential ingredient in indicating where our paths should be leading as we look to our futures. “The best you’ll ever be at a weakness is mediocre. There is someone who is hard-wired to do that thing and be great at it, because that is their natural fascination; that is what they are programmed to naturally love.”
The point of this idea is to embrace what you are naturally fascinated by. There is a limit to how good you can get at something that just doesn’t hold your attention or peak your interest. There are going to be people who love doing that thing, and their natural fascination will drive them to commit to it effortlessly, genuinely enjoying the time they invest in it.
Our best bet is to invest time and energy into the things that draw us in and spike our curiosity. That’s not to say if you “naturally like sports” you should drop everything and chase a career path in sports with no clear goal in mind, but rather that there might be something you naturally like doing, naturally improve at quickly, and naturally find yourself trying to learn more about. This is probably the same thing people may “know you for” or come to you for help with – it is your thing. Whether it is leading a group of people, giving speeches, coding, learning languages, painting, photography, writing, designing clothes, whatever it is – it doesn’t have to perfectly align with the cookie cutter path of where you “should be going.” It just needs to naturally invigorate you. It is something worth investing energy into. In other words,
“Find what you are good at without trying, and then TRY!”
The beauty in finding your natural fascination is that when you let yourself just BE instead of DO, you end up talking with people about this fascination, and serendipitously get exposed to new layers of this topic which you could miss if you were focused only on DOING. Not only is this time of “just being” important for discovering and nurturing your natural fascination, but also for creating memories which will permeate through time and link you to others indefinitely. We are a product of our experiences and conversations, and letting ourselves be completely present in a given moment enriches these experiences endlessly. By being intentionally unintentional, we allow an experience or conversation flow in the natural direction it is trying to, leading us to a more fruitful outcome than attempting to veer the moment to where you feel it “should” go.
Ultimately, we must create a balance for ourselves between intention and spontaneity. Right now, we are young, capable, independent, driven and very privileged to be in the situations we are in. It would be unwise to ignore the opportunities we have in our current circumstances and avoid using our time to progress in our personal pursuits. However, these are also some of the best and most experientially fruitful times in our lives and we cannot turn a blind eye to that fact. We cannot turn down opportunities to be with people, and experience life spontaneously at every turn to focus on “what needs to get done”, otherwise we will look back when we are older and wish we took more advantage of these fleeting opportunities. We DO our best when we also let ourselves BE. Being in a constant state of motion simply does not produce the best results. We need time to breathe. We need the oxygen that comes from experiences with others, from following our natural fascination and from being intentionally unintentional. Sometimes we need to really hold on and focus on DOING, and sometimes we need to let go so we can readjust our grip.
Don’t wear yourself out till you’re forced to let go and entirely lose hold of what you were so focused on hanging onto. Keep your grip strong by giving your hands a rest every now and then. It is the healthiest and most sustainable path to success and fulfillment. Life is not just about results, it is also about life.
We must shift back and forth between doing and being in a manner akin to breathing. When we are doing, we are working hard, we are focused, we are under tension, we are inhaling. When we are being, we let ourselves adjust our grip, catch our breath and enjoy what is around us. We are exhaling.
To survive, we must inhale and exhale.
We must be intentional, and we must be intentionally unintentional. We must balance both. Life is a combination of these two mentalities, and we mustn’t forget the importance of each one. We have to walk the line of doing & being.
Don’t forget to breathe.