I'm always busy. I'm one of those insanely restless people who never have time to do nothing but feel the need to always have something to do. When I go on leave it's because I have a project that I need to do on a week day, my meetings are fixed on weekends and even when I'm sitting down in front of the TV, I'm always up on social media or my inbox following up on forgotten emails or posts. Do I ever do nothing? Yes and I hate it. Should I ever have a period to do nothing? Apparently yes, according to this article by Eric Ruiz. If for nothing else, I need those moments of peace and quiet to get a refreshing message from God the owner of all creativity.
After his infamous rant at the 2009
VMA’s, Kanye West stayed surprisingly quiet for the rest of the year. Outside
of an apology special with
Jay Leno, not much was heard from Mr. West, either in the press or in the
studio. The radio silence was finally broken in May of 2010, more than six
months after he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech, with the release
of his newest single, “POWER”.
The song
would serve as the lead single for his forthcoming album, slated for a fourth
quarter release date in 2010. Upon its release, the track received critical
acclaim with Joe Dolan of Rolling Stone calling it West’s “best single since
‘Stronger’.”
Perhaps part of his radio silence was due to the backlash received from the
Taylor Swift incident, but maybe he just wanted space and quiet to work on the
album that would eventually become the heralded My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Despite
my best efforts in seventh grade, I’ve never released an album. But I can
imagine what a strenuous and difficult process it must be. In my day to day as
the sales and strategy in Latin America for Waze, I’m forced to
spend time alone to evaluate what’s going on in our region and we can address
and overcome the obstacles in our way. This solitude is necessary to completing
tasks, whether it’s a sales forecast or your first book.
But I
think this solitude is something that our generation is averse to. We’re
constantly looking for things to keep us busy, as if we’re afraid of what will
happen when we have to sit by ourselves in our own company. But if we hope to
get any meaningful work done, then we should listen to Tim Kreider. In a
wonderful article for The New York Times,
Kreider comments that “The
space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing
back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and
waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration -- it is,
paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. “
This
idleness isn’t just a benefit for getting work done, it’s needed to function as
a human being. If you’re always busy with things then you’re never busy with
life. When was the last time you went to the park or to the bench by your house
and just did...nothing? This time isn't needed just to meditate and grow, but
it’s needed to make sense of the world around us.
Pico Iyer talks
about how stepping away now and then allows us to see the world more clearly.
I’m not
saying you should become a hermit and go on a long sabbatical. Rather what I’m saying
is that it’s OK to not do anything from time to time. Go to the park, play FIFA
15, catch up on a TV show, whatever. Know that this temporary repose is needed
to give your mind a break and to allow you to collect and make sense of your
thoughts.
Whenever
we face a crisis -- professionally or personally -- is the time when we think
we need to act more and stay busy. We pick up extra tasks or look for other
ways to stay preoccupied. Somehow, we believe, if every single time slot is
filled, then we will be closer to solving the problem or challenge. But let’s
not confuse being busy with being productive. I can be busy on Reddit all day.
As James
Altucher points out in his article “5
Things I Learned From Gandhi,” “only through stillness can we be creative.” In
the same blog post, Altucher recounts a verbal exchange between Gandhi and his
supporters. Gandhi tells his backers that he sets aside one hour a day for mediating.
Surprised, his backers reply that he’s surely too busy to meditate for a whole
hour. At this, Ghandi says “Well, then, I now need to set aside two hours a day
to do meditation.”
Whether you’re building a sales forecast, releasing an album or toppling the
British Empire, often times it’s solitude and stillness that moves you forward.
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