More Being, Less Doing
Treating the day as a to-do list. Treating life as a to-do list. We’re all guilty of it at times. More being, less doing is not a new concept, but it is one that requires constant returning to and reminding of. Personally, it’s a way of being that doesn’t come easy to me after a lifetime consumed in doing, only achieving true satisfaction and release from anxiety when things are checked off the list. Feeling uncomfortable and uneasy in the undone, the in-between, in the process that seems too far from the destination.
“It’s the journey, not the destination.” Yes, I know; but how to embody it? How to apply it so that it truly sticks? So that it becomes a new way of being. More being, less doing. It doesn’t mean throwing out the to-do list. It means throwing out self-imposed and societal-imposed expectations of accomplishment and pumping your brakes renegade-style as a reclaim on your life. “Your one wild and precious life,” as Mary Oliver reminds us.
Slow down to do more. Quality over quantity. Acts of resistance in a world that encourages us to keep going, doing, and creating at unnaturally high speeds. A world that always wants more of you. A world that encourages multi-tasking and thereby avoiding the present moment at all costs. Always one foot out the door heading towards the next thing. Never standing firmly with two feet in the present.
I love writing. It helps me process my thoughts. I always feel better after doing it. However, the to-do list task-maker in me often chooses something on the list rather than this time for myself. Writing is not on the list because the list is already too long with tasks related to my survival and well-being: physically, financially and emotionally. I already have a hard time consistently fitting in exercise, meditation, and cooking into a busy work day as a solo entrepreneur where 9-5 doesn’t exist and weekends blend into workdays … how am I going to add another “self-care activity” into my already full days?
The rational mind wants to rationalize it. If it’s not rational, it’s off the list. As much as we may want or need it, we simply don’t have time for it and that’s that. Well, what if we do? What if it’s not time that’s limiting us but rather mental constructs? What if instead of a reorganization, a re-frame is needed?
Yes, there are calendars, schedules and timelines that can’t be ignored. But there are also things on the list that we impose our own timelines onto. Things that we would like to have done by a certain date, but don’t actually need to have accomplished by then. We think we would feel better if we met that self-imposed deadline, as it would allow that fleeting but oh-so-satisfying dopamine hit of checkingggg another thing off the list. But in truth we know that moment of satisfaction is transitory, that the list goes on, and that we will continue to come up against an endless mountain of requests for our time.
So how to spend it? If time is money and currency measures our worth, how are we spending our time? What is true wealth to you? What makes you feel rich and satisfied on a core level, not just a surface level? What matters to you in this lifetime? Taking an inventory assessment of your current values is a way to help the rational mind get on board with the break from the to-do list as a measure of success and satisfaction.
On your deathbed, will you feel complete and whole about all the things you checked off your list at the expense of being truly present for each moment of your life? Likely not. Likely you will value the latter. And knowing that death can come at any time and is not necessarily reserved for a far-away future, how can the mind rationalize waiting any longer to begin meeting the moment?
Because here’s another cliche for you - the only moment we have is the present. The next moment is not guaranteed. So if we’re never meeting the present moment, never allowing ourselves to fully embody it, to truly be here now, we’re never truly living. When I die, I want to feel like I’ve lived life, not “done” life.
Permission to loosen the grip on the to-do list. Permission to enter fully into the present moment. Permission to let things be un-done. Permission to feel the joy of entering fully into the here and now. You have arrived. There is nowhere else to be. More being, less doing.