Focus on Nothing
I have accomplished a whole lot of nothing over the last week.
My To-Do list (that wretched thing) has just as many items on it as it did two weeks ago. It’s not for lack of effort or lack of finishing the tasks set forth there…it’s that as each item is crossed off, another (or two or three) jumps on and joins the party.
And so because we live in a world where we have been trained to Focus on our To-Do lists, my To-Do list is still telling me what I have not yet accomplished in this last week. Last night I found myself starting to believe that I have, in fact, accomplished nothing.
But that could not be farther from the truth. I have accomplished many things in the last several days. And so I made a choice to Focus on the successes, not the so-called failures – the nothing that I accomplished. I could throw out a string of verbs here to submit palpable evidence that I have indeed been busy To-Doing and accomplishing, but I won’t.
Because that, you see, will avert my Focus. And right now, I want to Focus on that nothing. Society tells us that busy-ness is attractive. We are supposed to be busy doing something at all times, no matter what the cost – relationships, health, principles, sanity – and that if we are not doing something, we are nothing. And so we go and go and go and do and do and do until we can’t possibly go or do for one more second.
And then we have to stop and do nothing.
I ask you here to consider intentionally choosing to do nothing. Not as a by-product of over-doing, but as an intentional first-string choice. Think of any creation story or myth you like – the Book of Genesis, Native American Myth, whatever – and you will find many stories of how the universe and the world came to be begin with…nothing.
Nothing begets everything. The universe springs from an empty void…and the greatest ideas, dreams, thoughts, and choices to becomes the next better version of the Self come from allowing ourselves to clear the mind and Focus on nothing.
This is a concept that has fascinated me for years – decades, in fact. You see, I have adult ADHD and in my brain, there is rarely room for nothing and it is never quiet. Never. When I was in middle school, perhaps, I asked someone how they were able to fall asleep so easily and she replied, “Simple. Just close your eyes and think about nothing.”
Fascinating. But I couldn’t do it. And more than that, I decided I didn’t want to do it. It was strange and uncomfortable to think about nothing, to listen to silence. Focus on nothing? What a waste of time! I still find it difficult to Focus on nothing with great regularity. But I have continued to seek that nothing – that quiet – in my brain, and it often eludes. It must be sought with purpose, but even so it still prefers to flit away just ever so out of reach… I have caught glimpses of it, though, and the more I experience that nothing, that quiet, the more easily I find I am able to access it.
And when it comes, it is both refreshing and overwhelming at the same time. But I have learned to find comfort there and to accept it as something productive, not merely a lack of anything else.
Nothing begets everything. As I begin my One Word journey this year, I hope to develop more Focus. Before I Focus on any one thing, I start here with the choice to Focus on the fullness and promise of simply choosing to Focus on nothing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Love this? Share the love and tell someone!
12 Comments
Comments are closed.
I find that when I choose to do nothing (watch TV, read a book, take a nap), I usually get a new perspective on all the things that I have done. The things that I previously viewed as “nothings” – cooking, paying bills, organizing a drawer – suddenly become real things and realign themselves in the ranks of things which make a life instead of get in the way of it.
I think it’s interesting that we can say we have done “nothing” and yet still list so many things, like you said – cooking, bills, chores. Maybe it’s about what value we assign to things. Those everyday tasks are valuable, but sometimes I think we choose to limit their value in favor of “bigger” items and tasks.
I love doing nothing. Thinking nothing. I could be a professional at that.
As a side note, about the to-do lists. They never end. To help myself feel as if I have been productive, I make a different list at the end of the day. I make a list of everything I accomplished. This validates to me that I been productive instead of just behind for the next day.
Now that is a great idea, Heather! It really is about the mindset or the presentation, isn’t it? Productive vs. just behind – great way to look at it – is all about how we choose to present the information to ourselves. I’m going to have to try this.
American avant-garde composer John Cage certainly hit upon an interesting idea with his composition 4’33”. He received considerable accolades from those who understood (or pretended to understand) the piece, and also received harsh criticism from those who didn’t. He actually wrote the musical components of the piece, he then determined that every note would be silent…resulting in a 4.5 minute expanse of a quiet and motionless pianist. While a studio recording would be significantly pointless (though I have heard it done), this piece is meant for the live performance arena. The quiet and minute ambience (A/C fans, seats creaking, the occasional cough or other sound) becomes the musical interest–Cage himself often stated that all of the possible sounds that could happen during this piece are interesting and acceptable. That is the impetus: the small nothings that reside beyond our attention become the focus. The traditionalists and detractors who said that Cage wrote “nothing” have apparently forgotten that there is always something there to fill the space as a glass empty of water is still full of air. My favorite moment with this piece occurs on some video footage of a performance in Harvard Square. The ambience there is profound–vehicle and human traffic, chatter, assorted other sounds…all things that we would take for granted became a rich tapestry of sound in a very musical (though untraditionally so) context that would have been completely missed if nobody would have stopped to listen to nothing.
I love that you know these things. And if it weren’t for the fact that I know you, I would very likely never have been exposed to such things. 🙂
I don’t know which of your comments I love more.
He’s cute, ain’t he? 🙂
Sounds like a keeper!
Looks as though we were thinking of nothing together Lisa. I always have some sort of background noise and I remember when I first tried yoga that I laid there staring wild-eyed until the relaxation portion was over. Blech! I had so much to do, how could I just lay there still doing and thinking nothing.
I’m not sure how or when this happened, but eventually I was able to get out of my head and learn to enjoy stillness. Maybe it comes with age, focus, acceptance, or something altogether different. We will have to get together for a jammie jam do nothing session soon!
I’ve actually been thinking about yoga – just haven’t figure out where or how to start yet. Seems like just the thing for some quiet and calm and more.
[…] Focus on Nothing […]