Everywhere I go lately, this is what I hear, “I am so busy.” Underneath this statement seems to linger some veiled expectation on the part of the other that I should understand that because we are so overly occupied as a people that we should therefore be exempt from being responsible for certain things; like taking care of ourselves, like noticing, like making time for others, like living in balance, like paying attention to our kids. Observe this for yourself. How often do you feel, say or hear, “I am too busy to…” (Fill in the blank).

What is happening to us? When did “busy” become the very highest in what to go for in this Life? Even though most people would chuckle and say that is not what they actually think, not what they actually believe, it is actually how we are living.

In the yogic tradition there are two aspects of the Universe; that which is still and steady, and that which is flowing and moving. These energies move through us and through all of Creation. Unfortunately, we are too often weighted in movement that is extreme, chaotic, tense and blind. And too often, the stillness that we inhabit comes in the form of collapse and zoning out. At its best stillness informs movement and flow originates out of the steadiness. They contain one other. They seek one other. That is why these energies are depicted as Shakti and Shiva; the goddess and the god, the pairs of opposites, longing for the embrace of Union.

We have lost track of the necessity in our lives for balance. And we do this at great cost to what we love most. I will tell you that the very best and most important things that have ever happened to me have been born out of the space and the room for what really matters. No easy feat in a world that values speed and busyness and doing way too much. All the time. Even in our leisure pursuits.

On some level we know this, and yet too often it does not change our behavior. Change requires more than words or guilt or empty promises. It demands understanding what your actions mean to you. Why it is that you do what you do. So, what does being busy mean to you? What do you think it means about you? Why do you do it?

P.S. Change also requires including into the equation what it is that you lose out on when you do what you always do. In other words, at the very end of all of this busyness, beyond the reasons we tell ourselves for why we do what we do, what will you have lost that you cannot get back? Looked at in this light, what do you suppose our eulogies or tomb stones would read like? “Here lies so and so. Too busy to…”

I am doing more sitting these days. Literally, just sitting. I am not meditating, making lists or planning anything. I am not writing, reading or praying. As years of engaging in a daily practice have passed before me, more often than not, sitting is serving as the entry point; a doorway into places that either sets the practice up, or takes me to where my formal practice does not. It regularly demonstrates to me the deep and essential importance of doing nothing, absolutely nothing. And even though there is nothing in particular I am searching for, or aiming for, a most organic and surprising platform for good health, a clear mind, and right relationship with self, others and Spirit continues to arise each and every time I submit to this thing called “nothing.”

Like gale force winds the outer world whips around me clearing and destroying. In the midst of this, my little corner of the world goes through its own tectonic shifts as next fall both of my kids will be out of the house putting me in the position, for the first time in over twenty years, of not being responsible daily for the care and well-being of human beings dependent upon me. And then, oh by the way, we are building our new home, and I am on the brink of sending a long-labored book out into the world. These shifts and opportunities are pressing me to grow up somehow in order to become the person that all of this both asks and demands of me. And while my first inclination typically would be to start running harder and faster, it is, in fact, just the opposite. It is the doing nothing that is allowing me to not only keep up, but to actually flourish.

Personally, I can see that despite decades of meditation, mindfulness, prayer and yoga, I too often find myself trying to get somewhere, as opposed to being somewhere. I do not even know where I am trying to get to. It is as if there is some infinite, cosmic check list, and if I can just get through enough of it, some day it will be done, and that will mean… I don’t actually know what that would mean. Lately I see that even if and when, for arguments sake, I actually could get through that list–my life would be done. Knowing that makes me feel like I am not in so much of a rush anymore. Because that is the truth; we will never be done. As some of my favorite teachings describe, we are the embodiment of Consciousness/Spirit/Life itself which is infinitely and always looking to create through us. It never ends.

It seems to me that our minds have somehow confused the infinite creativity of Life itself coursing through us with busyness and endless lists of things to do. It puts me in mind of the accounts I have read of indigenous cultures who had to work daily for the necessities of life like food, water, shelter and protection, and yet still had hours each and every day for doing nothing. How might we do the same? How much of our running around is in fact, some kind of a defense against living? What exactly would happen if we all just sat  down, and not in front of a screen? Our lives are all moving so fast. Too fast. In our speed there is much that cannot be seen. Or felt. Or experienced. Gandhi once aptly said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

That is exactly what I am aiming for these days; a discovery of what that something more is. What does it feel like? How do you get there? What’s it all about? And while we may all get glimpses at times, mostly we relegate the “something more” to a small section of our lives. If at all.