There’s More to Life Than Being Busy: Why I Took a Pressure-Free Pause
“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield It was a Monday a few weeks ago, 6:00am, and I was taking a morning walk. The only light in sight was the neon yellow glare of the street lamps. My heart was heavy. It was as if someone had cut my chest open while I was asleep and slipped a cannonball inside. My alarm had awoken me at 5:00am, as it had every morning since the start of the year. My shoes crunch-crunched in the snow as I trudged along, ignoring this dull ache in my chest, telling myself “It’s just resistance to being up so early. Keep pushing through; gotta get those 12,000 steps today, Will.” I got to the end of the road, a mere eighty or so meters from my house, and WHOOSH, a wild wave of emotions washed over me, forcing me—jolting me—to stop walking and stand still and silent in the snow. I stood and stood as if I’d fallen asleep upright and frozen to death. This whooshing wave felt like a panic attack. Except it wasn’t. It was this feeling coming from my chest, the one I had tried to ignore. If its first attempt to get my attention was a whisper, this was a shout. And it was shouting in desperation ”LISTEN TO ME, WILL’.’ Without consciously making the decision, I turned and walked home. I’d barely walked for two minutes, not quite the forty-five-minute morning walk I had planned, but something inside of me, I can’t explain what, told me this was long enough for today. Arriving home, I sat down at my desk to give this feeling some attention. My eyes closed. I did my best to give a name to what I was feeling… Was it sadness? Nope. Dissatisfaction? Closer, but not quite. Pressure? Yes, pressure! I was feeling pressured! The next logical question for me was, why? Why was I feeling pressured? The answer was right under my nose, and no, that’s not a metaphor; the answer was literally right under my nose, sitting there on my desk staring up at me. You see, lying there in the center of my desk, scribbled on a piece of paper, was my list of jobs for the day, and it was a long, long list. I’d listed all the action steps I felt I needed to take, I felt I should take, I felt I must take on this day. An intimidating list detailing emails to be sent, words to be written, opportunities to be created. More. More. More. This list was going to keep me occupied almost every waking minute of the day, having me run around like a headless chicken, stuck in doing mode. Sure, there were self-care rituals—meditation, Qi Gong, walks dotted throughout the day—but even these seemed like chores within my strict schedule, just something else to tick off. Supporting [...]