Oh, To Do Nothing!

Some evenings make me feel lost. There is that intense urge to do something but nothing interests me. I take a book, read few lines and keep it aside. I try to write something but cannot find words. I switch on the TV, hoping to watch something but find myself mindlessly scrolling through channels without watching anything in particular. It is as if the evening is telling me to not to do anything!

As an adult, I find it very difficult to not to do anything at all. But in my childhood, I have spent many a glorious evening, sitting on a bench beside the gate of the building where I used to live, and I used to watch the road. Sometimes there would be friends, sometimes no one beside me, but this activity was immensely calming and peaceful. I used to simply sit and watch and not do anything else. I would see people returning to their homes from offices and it used to make me ridiculously happy, imagining the scene at their homes when they would finally get time to spend with their loved ones. Sometimes some neighbour would sit beside me and make small talk. It was so easy to talk then! No serious matters, no worries - simply conversing. 

Why was everything so easy and natural during the childhood? It felt so natural to just sit at the balcony and gaze at the sky, or spend some time at the terrace of my building and gaze down at the road below. When was the last time I observed the world around me in stillness?!

Over a period of time, I gradually lost the art of doing nothing. There always has to be something to do. Either the chores of the home, or read, or write. Something, but never 'nothing'! 

What happened to good old 'reposing in the moment'!? I know what happened. It turned into a lost art. 

Today, as I went with my husband and my kid to a literary festival, I realized how badly I need to revive this art, as I found a certain restlessness in the mind that absolutely refused to calm down. I was at a beautiful place, surrounded by readers and writers and books, and yet my mind wandered, rendering me restless and uneasy. I have indeed lost the habit of doing nothing. 

Revive this habit, I will. Bring back the habit of not doing anything for some time during the day, I will!

Even as I type this, some solutions come to my mind. Deliberately slowing down in whatever I do, not doing multiple tasks at a time, not undertaking too many tasks in a single day... these are just the basic requirements. What I absolutely need to do is to keep some time during the day for doing nothing. 

The days seem to rush by, because I am probably rushing by. If I slow down, life too will, perhaps, and I will be able to smell the roses along the way, all the while reposing in the moment and doing 'nothing'!