doing nothing

“Doing Nothing is Something.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee. And you?

I’m not being at all productive. There’s so much to do —find a vaccine, write a bestseller. So much. And I’m just —sitting here. Doing nothing. On a Saturday, with the morning slipping away! Lazy.

In truth, we do too much sometimes.

We swoop in when using wait time would be more appropriate, to give the other person a chance to try something for themselves.

We interrupt the person performing CPR to tell them that we’re really terribly upset by it all and feelings, don’t you know?

We gather during pandemics because it’s our right not to listen to scientific advice that is, at this point, evidence based because transmission rates have declined significantly where distancing has been aggressively implemented.

There are times to be active: to do.

And there are times to be passive yet aware: to be, to think, to reflect, to observe, to relax, to rest, to listen, to maintain safe distances, to assess, to reassess, to wait, to sleep, to recuperate, to back off, to enjoy a moment. All of these things are verbs. They are doing. They’re just not stridently obvious, and we don’t always assign them the value that they actually have.

We need to give ourselves permission not to be “doing” at all times. Doing too much for the sake of doing Something can actually cause harm. The key is trying to be wise and knowing that, sometimes, Nothing is the Something you need to do and the wisest course of (in)action.

climbing not everest

“It’s not Everest.” He rolls his eyes.

It isn’t Mt. Everest. He’s right. It’s a short hike —4 miles round trip, with a little over 1000 feet of elevation gain. It should be easy. We’ve done much harder.

We’re here because we’re both out of school (him as a student, me as staff) because they are closed. We both understand that this time needs to be spent well. We both like being outside, and so, here we are, avoiding other people out in the fresh air.

There are no official lessons from the school district yet, but I’m mindful I should be using every opportunity I can to teach him things. I do that anyway, but it takes on new significance when there is nothing else. Today’s lesson presents itself 0.6 miles from the end of the trail where we’re supposed to turn around. The trail was fine where we started —dry, no tree roots or larger rocks to avoid; now, it’s icy on an incline.

“Should we keep going?” I ask, looking doubtful.

“Yes!” He acts like it’s the stupidest thing in the world to turn around now.

And here’s our lesson: “Do you know about the Everest effect?”

This is the point where he rolls his eyes.

“No, I’m serious. You’re not in school. You’re going to learn something. Do you know what it is?”

He doesn’t answer. I take that to mean no and continue.

“The closer you are to a goal, the harder it is to abandon it, even if everything else is telling you it’s not a good idea. What do we know about our situation?”

“It’s right over there!”

“Yes, it is,” I acknowledge. “That’s something that says we should finish —we’ve come so far, it’s so close. What else do we know?”

“It’s icy.”

“Yes. That’s something that says maybe we shouldn’t finish. What else do we know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. What do we have with us?” I can be tenacious when I’m trying to get twelve year olds to think. And annoying, judging from his facial expression. “Do we have what we need?”

We had left everything that is useful for ice in the car. “No.”

“What else do we know?”

“Fine. Let’s go.” He’s rolling his eyes again. I’m pretty sure he wants me to shut up, but dammit, I’m educating.

“What else do we know? Maybe you’re right. We are almost there. Why wouldn’t we finish? You’re not in school. This is your school today. We’re almost there. That’s our goal —kind of like when people go to summit Everest. Even though this is not Everest,” I say pointedly. “Why wouldn’t we finish, even though the goal is right there? What do we know? We know it’s right there. We know it’s icy.”

“On a hill.”

“On a hill. We know we don’t have crampons or walking sticks.” After that, we discuss more. We consider worst case scenarios involving the hospital and the coronavirus. We consider that we live nearby and can visit again. I tell him about the mountain climber I heard say once: a successful summit is the one where you make it back down safely. We discuss the importance of taking risks, but we also discuss the importance of taking as many factors into account that we can think of when deciding whether a risk is worth it at a particular time (training, resources, and other things almost-13 year olds don’t generally talk about with their mothers, at least not voluntarily).

We make it down without slipping too much —one or two times each. No one falls. There are no unnecessary trips to urgent care. It is a successful summit. I hope he learned something, even if it wasn’t Everest.