At the moment I am in a special situation. I live in a foreign country and I am employed in an industry that is heavily impacted by the Covid crisis. In all the uncertainty around me about the future, job, role, work and unprecedented transformation in all walks of life, there is the certainty of one thing that I didn’t experience pre covid........that certainty is of time. I have never ever before this experienced time ... in seconds, minutes and hours only in days and months.
For the past few months I haven’t had full working weeks, I worked between two to four days a week but not all five! When I was about to enter this phase, I had this huge excitement and anticipation of ample time ahead of me. Like a child awaiting summer vacation, I created a long list of all that I wanted to do, wanted to learn and wanted to accomplish in this extraordinary leisure that I was going to get. Today over 5 months of that anticipated leisure has gone past, where I didn’t have to get to office by a certain time, didn’t have to work around the school schedule for children and a steep drop in official meetings. At the end of each week I do not have a sense of accomplishment, in fact sometimes I fight uselessness, as a feeling. I am left with thoughts about what I could have achieved or I would have liked to do with my time, wondering what I would do if I was in my country, what if I was on my farm....possibly started on the distant agri business dream, how I could possibly help my family’s’ needs relating to their wellness and the list runs long. At some point continuing to look at what I couldn’t do is very exhausting so I decided to look back and say If I haven’t achieved or accomplished lots of things then what did I do at all?
I realized I didn’t accomplish much and that in itself is something big that I achieved in last 20 years of my life. Over the past few months I experienced what it means when I was not doing much to fill my days with lots of activities. In all the available time, I exercised freely, I meditated by choice, I did not miss any of my dance classes . I met more families regularly than I did before. I spent immense time with my children. I have complete control on my now clean house! I could turn out some delicious traditional dishes that I always outsourced and even started growing herbs. In fact by not doing anything (in my own thinking learning a new professional skill, doing a course or picking up a certification), I found a space to be stress-free, to not be overly anticipating the future and taking each day as it comes.
Going forward when somebody asks me what have you been up to? I will be lot more comfortable to say I’m doing nothing much these days and then smile to myself because I know what not doing anything really means to me now.
