The Discomfort of Doing Nothing

One morning, I arrived at my Pilates class a little early.

My trainer was finishing up with the client before me, so I sat down to wait. Almost instinctively, I reached for my phone.

There wasn’t anything urgent waiting for me. No message I needed to reply to. No email that couldn’t wait another few minutes. Yet somehow, those few unexpected minutes felt uncomfortable enough that my first instinct was to fill them.

I smiled when I noticed it.

I spend much of my life talking about mindfulness. I encourage people to slow down, to notice what’s happening inside and around them. Yet there I was, doing exactly what so many of us do without even realising it.

Perhaps that’s why I love mindfulness so much.

Not because it makes us perfect at being present, but because it keeps showing us things about ourselves that we may have otherwise missed.

At the time, I didn’t think much more about it.

The class began, life carried on, and I forgot about those few minutes in the waiting area.

Later that evening, as I was getting ready for a difficult conversation, that moment came back to me.

Nothing had happened yet.

There wasn’t a problem to solve.

But my mind had already started rehearsing the conversation.

What would I say?

What if they said this?

How would I respond?

The stories had already begun.

And then it hit me.

Those few minutes outside my Pilates class had given my mind the space to wander towards that conversation.

And without even realising what I was doing, I had reached for my phone.

It got me thinking.

How often am I so busy filling a moment that I forget to actually live it?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that my phone wasn’t really the point.

It could just as easily have been answering emails.

Making another cup of coffee.

Tidying a drawer.

Starting another task.

What stayed with me wasn’t that I reached for my phone.

It was that I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve started doing something different.

When I notice myself reaching for my phone, I don’t always stop.

Sometimes I still pick it up.

And sometimes, simply noticing the urge is enough.

Before I do anything else, I check in with myself.

How am I feeling right now?

Sometimes there’s something underneath that needs my attention.

Sometimes there isn’t.

Sometimes I simply notice my breath.

Or the sound of someone laughing nearby.

Or the sunlight coming through a window.

Or the texture of the fabric I’m wearing.

Or I just find myself watching people go about their day.

Sometimes I notice absolutely nothing special.

And that’s okay too.

I don’t think every second of our life is trying to teach us something.

Sometimes it’s just another second.

And that’s reason enough to pay attention to it.

There isn’t always a lesson waiting to be learned.

Sometimes the practice is simply remembering that this second is worth living, instead of rushing through it on the way to the next one.