Monday Morning Motivator: STOP DOING FOR A MINUTE...AND START BEING

STOP DOING FOR A MINUTE...AND START BEING

When did just hanging out go out of fashion? When did doing nothing become synonymous with laziness? When did we decide that if we weren't constantly connected we were totally out of touch? When did we go from human beings to human doings? And can we go back again?

Yes. We can. We just have to learn - or re-learn - how to be. But that's easier said than done in the work-obsessed, tech-saturated, everything's a crisis, hyper-connected lives. Just "being" may be a lost art. But maybe we can find it again. And maybe we'd better do it sooner than later because it -doing less/being more - just may be critical not only to our "well being," whatever that is, but to our happiness...and our ability to live with "ease" rather than "dis-ease..." Hey, did you ever notice how you seem more susceptible to being "caught by" a cold or the flu or whatever's wafting around, when you're strung out? I don't just mean tired, I mean strung out - as in wiped - caused by too many distractions, too much work, too much travel, too many deadlines, too many of life's pushes and pulls that actually pull us to pieces at the very moment we need to be "whole." Hey, it happens. But it needs to happen less. (And just for the record, neuroscientists tell us that some of our best breakthrough ideas come when we completely disconnect from "goal-oriented" activities and embrace the "white space" of total disengagement...)

So starting today, stop for a minute, "settle" and allow a fresh breeze to blow through your mind. Invite in a random thought that may not lead anywhere. Let that random thought marinate, percolate - and then just "cogitate" for awhile. Don't try to make an actual decision. You can do that later (maybe.) Say out loud, "It's okay, it's all good, it doesn't have to add up to anything, I don't have to file a report. I don't have to make sense of anything. I don't have to control everything. I can laugh for no reason and practice taking absolutely nothing seriously. I can "waste" time and love every precious minute of it. I don't have to win. I just have to play.

I have a wonderful friend named Barbara Brennan. She's got "being" down. She practices it every day. She tells the story of how when her nieces and nephews would join her on a trip to somewhere they said what all little kids say, "Are we there yet???" And she would reply. "We'll be there soon enough. But right now, we are here. And here is very good." Barbara's signature t-shirt has this printed on it, "Just B." Those of us lucky enough to be her friends (and to have been given one of her very cool t-shirts), know what that means. It's more than her initial, it's her mantra. Oh, and this is one of my favorite B.Brennan quotes: "I don't have time for the drama of life. If it's not real, I'd prefer to take a nap." (Oh, by the way, you don't have to take a nap to dream.)