Most of my growing years, I was living in the society myth that the ones who are in action, engaged in multi-tasking, showing up at almost all places are productive people. Men and women with 9-5 job or businesses or the ones who are constantly hustling throughout the day are defined as productive people. The ones having the capacity to attend the external noise with an answer, action or delivery are considered being productive in life.
Profoundly influenced by this cult of productivity, for me being inactive had become like a curse of the day, hence I had to fill my day with numerous action packed activities even if they were meaningless. Forget about the weekdays, the weekends had to be gratified with the so called de-stress activities like visiting malls, shopping, eating at restaurants or cool joints or cafes, attending events etc, ensuring the best instagram shots are captured as enjoyable moments of life.
The goal of living in a sequence of actions became the life mission. The problem? I did a day job that was filled with a degrading train travel ( only Mumbaites can understand it), worked 12 hours a day in a uninspiring job, ate meals with office gossips, dodged the corporate politics and travelled back in the evening in the same dreadful train, further misinterpreting the burn-out days as my productive days for decades.
I was quite proud of myself for being a world defined productive and extrovert person. But when the second wave of COVID hit our home, I was forced to pause this accelerated productive life, I was compelled to stop and pushed into this absolute space of non-action. When I went into zero action I faced STILLNESS. Facing stillness for the first time in my life was like exploring the dark side of the moon.
Just sitting with myself and doing nothing was initially frustrating as my body and mind was conditioned to constantly move, it was completely alien to experience of non-movement and unwilling to listen to the quietness of life. It felt like I was getting a hand-on experience of practicing of being motionless. It made me feel like I was in a 14 day life course of doing absolute nothing but really practice being with oneself. The experience of being with oneself raised questions inside me that why can’t I sit alone with myself? If I can’t be with myself in a room for few hours, then how do I expect my people to stay with me? If I am unable deal with myself for some hours, then how do I expect my relationships to deal with me? The whole process of becoming still became a process to embrace self-acceptance.
I realized that the acceptance of self in solitude is important to be in state of liberty in this world. The experience of doing nothing helped me pause, reflect and choose the light and dark side of me completely and develop the wisdom to choose steadiness while the world spins around. It helped me develop the wisdom to listen to the unacknowledged genius inside me which otherwise would have not showed up in constant movement of being productive. And so practicing stillness has become of my most productive action of life.
To me, stillness is a proactive action, it helps you to focus on preparing you and your life without acting frenzy, instead be on command, where as being productive is a reactive action, you mostly end up mostly focusing on repairing yourself or your life. I believe that if you want to do some great work in your life, it has to come from a space of stillness and not from fullness.
