The Discomfort in Just “Being”

Sometimes you don’t realize you’re going at a million miles a minute—desperately running in a hamster wheel—until you have a moment of “nothing.” 

This exact scenario happened to me last week. 

On Friday night, as I shut my work laptop for the day, I realized that I had two hours of no commitments or scheduled tasks before I needed to start getting ready for dinner with friends. 

I looked over at my sweet dog basking in a small strip of sunlight that was shining through my living room window and thought, “he should really be sunbathing outside.” 

It was, after all, one of the first warm and sunny days of the year. 

Normally, when I take my dog on long walks I’ve either got some form of entertainment—music, an audiobook, or a podcast—blasting through my AirPods. But on this day, my phone battery happened to be perilously low so I figured I’d take the opportunity to turn it into a mindful walk—no distractions or “productivity” needed to be squeezed into those hours. 

We walked to a secluded park in a quiet neighborhood a couple kilometers from my house. Seated at the park bench with my dog at my feet and the birds chirping in the background, I began to look around and take some deep breaths. 

Sounds idyllic, right? 

Well, it’s also underratedly hard to just sit and do “nothing.” 

The mental chatter, which for the most part, I realized, is kept at bay due to my busy lifestyle, turned on as soon as I sat down to relax. I could feel my chest tighten and my body tense up in that ought-to-be-peaceful moment 

This is one of the saddest disconnections we face as humans. In our productivity- and stimulation-focused culture, the idea of being alone with our thoughts can become paralyzing. 

I also know that this feeling is temporary. Like all healthy habits, getting comfortable being alone and slowing down will take practice. And I can get “good” at them—if I push past the discomfort and choose to put myself in those situations with consistency. 

That’s my next homework: to plan for more alone time. 

I’m really excited to get really good at it.