Call me a skeptic. Call me a cynic. Call me caught-up-in-my-own craziness, and closed-off to certain options.
But here’s the thing about mindfulness and our continuing scramble to get us some. Why don’t we look at the bigger picture?
Sure, sure.
Sometimes I’m for slowing down, right? I’d say that’s common sense. Sometimes I’m for speeding up, though that’s only when I’m running behind. Mostly, I’m for a returning measure of rational human behavior for all of us – as in not living to work, of necessity.
As for something to ground us and encourage us to relax, I’m definitely in favor of that. Even if I’m terrible at doing nothing, wouldn’t I be wise to attempt a little “non-doing” per the urging of the mindfulness biz, which is increasingly Big Biz?
A week ago, The New York Times quoted the “soon-to-be-billionaire” founder of Twitter, and his ability to leave his phone behind and take a walk, albeit brief, disconnected from technology. Consequently, he found himself more aware (and appreciative) of the city around him.
So far so good, right?
In “Mindfulness, Getting Its Share of Attention,” we are informed that:
Everywhere lately, the here and now is the place to be.
No kidding.
The here and now.
Presence.
Yup. You know it. You believe in it. You want it.
Let the chanting begin. And yes, that is my cynicism singing its merry tune.
Not only do we have mindfulness reminders online (nonstop), mindfulness books (a-plenty), and mindfulness apps (to remind us to be mindful), but The Times article mentions mindfulness relaxation for the U.S. Marine Corps, meditation for Rupert Murdoch, and George Stephanopolis is getting into the act as well.
Oh, and let’s not forget corporate America (and I don’t mean Arianna Huffington extolling the virtues of sleep, which I put in an entirely different category I think of as “impossible sanity”).
That said:
Nike, General Mills, Target and Aetna encourage employees to sit and do nothing, and with classes that show them how.
Sit and do nothing? Really?
We wouldn’t need to schedule and practice “non-doing” if we weren’t expected to work around-the-clock doing.
Allow me to repeat:
… if we weren’t expected to work around-the-clock “doing.”
Hello?
Am I missing something?
Apparently that’s a yes.
Perhaps it’s because I’m not sufficiently in the here and now.
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Well, since you asked, yes, I would respectfully venture that you are missing rather a lot. For starters, the idea you refer to in the title of your post is “wu wei” (a Taoist concept) is more properly translated as “the doing of non-doing,” or “action without effort.” Think of it as “going with the flow,” or “not pushing the river,” as my wise grandmother says.
I do agree wholeheartedly with your premise that many in modern society would benefit from not “living to work,” although I think that’s easier said than done. For one thing, people would need to stop wanting to have so much stuff, and to live in houses that are bigger than they really need, and to drive absolutely everywhere. They’d need to understand that going on a wildly expensive vacation is not a substitute for really living every day to its fullest potential. That’s right, they’d need to opt out of consumerism in a big way, if not completely. For most people, I don’t see that happening any time soon. Why not?
Because the dirty truth of consumerism is that it’s a very useful distraction. When we’re busy buying stuff and then working like maniacs to pay it off, the nagging emptiness in our lives — whatever its source — is less obvious. We’re also a lot less apt to notice the monumental imbalances in the world around us, imbalances that benefit big business and the 1% overlords, and that they’d really rather we didn’t see. After all, if we did, we might want things to change.
I believe that many of us also work nonstop because we are afraid of what would happen if we didn’t. We think that our bosses and our companies would find us expendable. And they might. But then again, if more of us said, this is not how I’m going to work, they might have to rethink things, rather than just paying lip-service to work-life balance by offering a workshop on it once in a while. Ultimately, however, we are responsible for our own lives. When we’re saying, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!” what we’re really saying is “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.” Nobody can change that but us, ourselves.
And, finally, as I said at the beginning of this comment, mindfulness is NOT doing nothing. This is a popular misconception, and one that does nobody any good. As I tell my coaching clients when I ask them to undertake a mindfulness practice, mindfulness is paying attention. It is doing one thing at a time. It is being present to what is happening inside us and what is going on around us. It is — sometimes — sitting still, but that moment of sitting still is in service of quieting our minds and listening to the things that arise for us when we do, even (especially) the “brain vomit.” It is a powerful tool to be used in the service of learning what we really want and need from our lives.
If you’re interested in learning what mindfulness is all about — and I gather that you might be, based on what you say and don’t say in this post — I would recommend that you get your hands on Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, The Miracle of Mindfulness. In it, he shares important lessons, such as, “when you are doing the dishes, just do the dishes.”
I am grateful to you for this post, because it has helped me revisit some important-to-me principles and has given me the opportunity to share and be in connection with you. I wish you well.
Lovely to have you visit. Such a thoughtful comment, and thank you for the book recommendation.
Consumerism run wild, yes. And sadly we have all become expendable. A commodity, most of us.
Hi Wolf,
Just a moment of non-doing waiting at the mechanic to say that I think the money machine is trying to squeeze the non-doing thing, but it’s like squeezing a cloud and they are no real rain-makers, yet they’ll get money but no Zen from all this. And thus they spread their miserable and unconscious emptiness until we are all, together, in non-being and non-doing and all, perhaps is forgiven, for the manic money and meaning makers were never none but we.
Hugs
Bruce, It’s wonderful, always, to hear from you. I love the way you think.
…encourage employees to sit and do nothing, and with classes that show them how. How do I get one of THOSE jobs! Although I AM a huge believer in the mental health benefits of daydreaming! And as soon as we can extend the day to 36 hours, I might be able to do just that! How did we ever get to the point where we need a class to show us how to slow down and take a break every now and then?
It’s all about balance, isn’t it? And listening to your body – it knows when it’s had enough and if we don’t, then our body and spirit suffer.
We ate out last night in a nice restaurant and the couple across from us were both on their cell phones for quite a while, took a break to order, and then got back on their phones. Why bother with the date or evening out to share a meal, I wondered. That’s what I call a lack of mindfulness. A lack of attention.
So many of us are pressured in the work place to multi-task that we can feel like slackers if we try to focus on just one thing at a time. When I was working as a TV news reporter and then as a Family Law paralegal, managing crises and chaos became just a normal, expected part of each day!