As the world grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and its unprecedented effects on both life and economy, many of us find ourselves in an equally unprecedented situation of having our daily lives disrupted by nationwide lockdowns. For societies long accustomed to a fast-everything culture and a 24/7 productive nature, the sudden slowdown and standstill can be a shock to our systems. Some of my friends now find themselves stuck at home between work, children and zero social life. Suddenly, there is no more need to beat the morning traffic or rush to drop the kids off in schools, and with that, for many, more pockets of free time.
“I’m going crazy facing the kids 24/7, I need to find something for them to do to get them off my back.”
“I’m thinking of what to cook for lunch when I’m working and thinking of work when I’m eating.”
“I feel more like a mother these days cos I’m 100% at home… work, cook, wash, and entertain my kid.”
“I honestly have nothing to do now… so worried that my company will find me redundant.”
Yet the most interesting question I have ever been asked— “Seriously, what do you do to occupy yourself huh?”
This question inevitably reminded me of that time when I was interning in a cooking school for a month. On my nearly third week a new student had joined us and when she saw that this senior was still basically clueless with the kitchen utensils and recipes, exasperatedly asked, “I don’t mean to sound rude, but what have you been doing for the past two weeks?” Of course, when it happened, I was taken aback by her question and immediately recoiled in a mix of shame and guilt at my supposed lack of aptitude and drive. Admissibly, if one can’t master a single recipe or handle a kitchen knife after two weeks of cooking, it really says much about one’s learning ability, isn’t it?
An outcome for everything
For a long time, there seemed to be a perception that there must be an outcome for everything. An achievement to prove our ability, a result to validate our efforts, an output to justify our existence. As if by having no outcome it diminishes the significance of who we are and what we bring to this life. That’s why we constantly put ourselves under pressure to do something, to achieve something, to produce something, to show something. At least that is how we have, over eons of human evolution, been conditioned to become. Ask yourself, when was the last time you did absolutely nothing? How did you feel?
Bored? Guilty? Frustrated? Redundant? Unproductive? Left out? Lonely? Invisible?
Doing to avoid discomfort
All living beings want to be happy and free from sufferings. Nobody likes to be in uncomfortable situations whereby we are drawn out from our comfortable dwellings and become vulnerable to undesirable threats to this comfort. So, we strive to do things to avoid being put in those situations in the first place.
My mom’s exasperating habit of toggling between TV channels mitigates her fear of missing out on a better programme than the present one.
My sister’s tendency to plan ahead for everything alleviates her fear of the unknown and provides a comforting assurance in the face of her own fragile mortality.
My workaholic colleague’s fear of not being seen and heard propelled his need to keep performing and getting involved in projects.
For my friend whose motto is ‘Live Fast, Die Young’, her constant need to travel anywhere except home bespeak a desire to escape from the mundaneness of her life and the burden of facing her estranged family.
For that friend who needed to perform tasks for her child in order to feel like a proper mom, doing provides the validation that convinces herself of her motherly goodness, because otherwise she is not.
For those of us experiencing slowdowns at work during this period, the fear of being found out when we have nothing to show for our efforts, and the guilt of not giving our value’s worth makes us feel redundant and insecure in this current environment.
You see… we, keep, doing.
The discomfort of facing something undesirable and unwanted always inevitably lead to our striving to do something to avoid or resist it. The word ‘striving’ means ‘to exert’ and ‘to make strenuous effort’. So, we get the gist that when we strive, it is likely to take a lot of effort and energy. Sounds like a stretch. Is it any wonder then that we end up feeling stretched, drained, exhausted and stressed all the time? And we wonder why!
Letting go of control and just be
Just like COVID-19 is a circumstance beyond our control, recognize that all of life is just made up of circumstances that just are, if only we let it be. Rather than fighting and resisting to turn the boat to where we want it to go, feeling spent and frustrated trying to navigate against the currents of life, we might find that simply by giving ourselves the courage to lean into life and rest in its natural ebbs and flows, we begin to float with joy and ease into our natural way of just being.
It may be tempting to think that going with the flow is merely an excuse to go easy on ourselves and conveniently leave things to chance or fate, but there is a world of difference between going with the flow in awareness versus going with the flow in unconsciousness.
When we sit and think about the past and future without ever realizing our bums are on the chair, did we really sit?
When we sit and experience sensations in our bodies, conscious of our breath and every sensorial impressions of the surroundings, was it just sitting?
The answer lies in awareness. The awareness that we are alive in this present moment and not always lapse into our conditioned tendency to fall back to the irretrievable past or lean into the unknown future! The awareness that we are good enough, and we have all the conditions within us to be happy in this moment. The awareness that it is okay for us to simply be and allow life to unfold and experience it as it is, not try to control it to become what we want it to be.
It’s not about what we do but how we do
I’ve always liked the story about the Hare and the Tortoise, though I’d love to add my own take of the tale. It is not about the speed that we complete the race, but the sights we do get to see when we do so in our own time. Often times, we set out to win the race so that we can hold that beautiful pot of gold at the end, but we forget to notice and appreciate the beauty along the way— the colourful flowers lining the journey, the beautiful people sharing our path, the glorious sun that rises and shines come what may, the fluffy clouds that gives us water and eternal life. The Tortoise sure took his own time but in focusing in the present moment and simply trusting himself to complete the race, one sssssssssslow step at a time, I am certain he enjoyed his race more than the Hare!
What if we simply allow children to be children doing children’s things and allow them to experience life the way they see it, not the way we want them to see? What if we just stay with them and give them our full presence— not throw another gadget or assessment book at them just to ‘keep them occupied’ or make things easier for ourselves? To put things into perspective, children grow up in the blink of an eye and the best moment with our children is always now, not in a future world that we imagined for them.
When we work, we work mindfully and give work our full awareness. When we cook, we cook mindfully and give the dishes our full awareness. That way, we are always living in the here and now, feeling grateful that we still have a job in these uncertain times, and food to eat when others elsewhere are worried when their next meal will come.
Rather than worry about the retrenchment that we cannot control or foresee; we can take this time to pause and rest. Yes, contrary to belief, it’s perfectly alright to rest when we need to and not be guilty about it. After all, the best ideas often flow when we are not fixated with finding a solution. Being still, taking the chance to look inwards might just inspire us to learn a new skill, retrain and improve our existing competencies, or even come up with an amazing business idea.
We are human beings, not human doings
Just as how I let go of expectations and pressure on myself to learn x number of recipes in the cooking school, I’d find the experience so much richer and fuller when I immersed myself in every moment (cooking and gardening whenever I feel like it) without the stress of having to ‘do something’ just to feel that I have gotten my fees worth or to show people what I have learnt. The one month of internship did me a world of good once I learnt to detach any expectation to any outcome and just go with the flow.
I now count myself as a freestyle chef. I don’t have a signature dish, nor can I cut through beef like Salt Bae, but I do have a whole lot of beautiful memories of my internship and the life skills that I picked up as a result of being with whatever life threw me, lemons and all.
Lest we forget, we are human beings, not human doings. And it is perfectly alright for us to just be and not just do!
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