
My personal stress level and the one in my home has been on a constant high level the last couple of months. (To be honest, I can’t remember when it hasn’t been on a tense strain anymore.)
Apart from the usual problems that come with such a situation such as tense reactions, much less patience in everyday contacts, mental exhaustion (my reading subscriptions are piling up beside me) etc. there’s another thing that heightens the vicious cycle: isolation.
When we tend to throw ourselves into work, or tense work situations ask us to do it, then the first thing we’re cutting out on is the down time. Or rather the non-oriented down time.
Maybe this is just a typical intellectual’s problem, but having down time that is not itself filled with clearly denoted things such as reading something specific or watching something specific, is something that’s necessary. It’s the simple difference between a filled silence or relaxation and a true empty silence where silence suffices itself to a degree.
Meeting friends, just to meet them. Not to DO anything together, but just to be together for instance is one of those things where I surprised myself thinking ‘…but, what use is it…? We should be doing this or that…’
I find that automated train of thought of mine completely shocking, because I try to excel at the method of not finding a use or an intended goal in everything. Something that is so natural to our modern society. Sometimes just doing something for itself and without the knowledge of an immediate gain is much more important than actually achieving something on your to do list.
Why? Because we’re not defined by what we can achieve, but rather by what we can let go. Ultimately it’s only in those unplanned moments that the truly good things happen. Not because they’re better than the plan you made to achieve your degree or make your love happy, but because the unexpected and the unplanned is something the mind needs to even be able to project, plan and aim. If planning was all that was needed for a good life, a full life, then everyone could do it.
Be courageous and allow yourself the gap in planning, the silence in doing and the liberty to just… be.
yseult Soulfood
Recent Comments