Doing Nothing

Today is a public holiday in Jamaica. My children were invited to spend the long weekend with friends in the country. Bliss of all bliss – I have been home alone for two whole days! Last Thursday as I looked forward to the weekend, I shared with my sister that I had a long list of things to do and was thinking of having a wine and dessert party on Saturday night. She looked at me incredulously, and in her wise-woman way said “Are you crazy? What are you chocking up the weekend for? I don’t plan to do one thing – except sleep” (her children would also be away with friends for the weekend).

And so, I did nothing. Or at least that is what I wrote on my Facebook page. However, I actually did a lot – after bidding my children farewell and be-on-best-behaviour on Saturday morning, I spent a free-flowing morning with a friend, which started on my patio sharing coffee, detoured to us going plant-shopping and ended in the early afternoon with us together enjoying a delicious lunch of fish soup and festival! I visited my nutritionist; I read two books; I went to a yoga class; my sister and I cleared out my mother’s closets. Nothing? Sounds like a lot to me!

And I muse, that perhaps what we really mean when we say we are doing nothing, is that we are doing nothing for other people. Everything that I have done this weekend I did for myself and no-one else. Yesterday for example, I got dressed for church and was headed out the door. I couldn’t find one of the dogs, and in the frustration of realising that I would be late for church, I began to wonder why I was going. And I realised that I felt I should go to church rather than that I wanted to go. I undressed and went back to bed! What a liberation!

We all should do nothing from time to time. It presents us with the opportunity of looking at what we really want rather than what is expected of us, or what we think is expected of us. It is liberating to step up to our own needs, wants and desires and to acknowledge them as being just as, or even more important than the needs of our loved ones and others. It is a critical part of taking care of ourselves so that we can care for those we love. The tough part is wading through the morass of societal expectations, family traditions and inculcation to determine what we truly want for ourselves. Time alone, “doing nothing” allows us that breathing space. In the exhale is all that is expected of us; in the inhale are our own true desires.

As of today I will respond to those who ask what I did on the weekend: “I did a lot, but only the things that I wanted to do for me and no-one else – and it was absolutely wonderful”