Taking the time to take time
In the past few years, it feels like people have started to glorify busyness. Work lives and home lives creep together; there’s pressure to account for every minute of the day. Even children get caught up in it, spending a full day at school and then hours afterwards on scheduled activities.
The other day, someone asked me what I liked doing outside of work, and I realized my answer was: nothing. I like doing nothing. Or, at the very least, planning nothing. A night where we haven’t planned or scheduled anything is deliciously open to possibility. We can watch a show together. We can make cookies. We can hang up our hammocks and dangle in the back yard, looking up at the stars.
Of course, we still have scheduled activities. I still love inviting another family over for a dinner or game night, or going on a camping trip. Just like I schedule activities, though, I’ve started purposefully leaving blocks of nothing. Connection comes out of those times. So does creativity. Family happens, and joy, and deep conversations that go half-remembered in the morning.
Let’s move away from busyness. Let’s say no to more. Let’s open up more space to spontaneity, and inspiration. Let’s find blank spaces, and instead of filling them, let them fill themselves with the lives we discover.
-Page
Farmer & Cultivator
