To really enjoy something well doesn't come natural to me. To remove all situations, appointments, protections, opinions, thoughts, hesitations, and just... enjoy.
A friend posted this article by Peter Bregman on facebook today, and there was a section of it that really resonated with me.
So why is this a problem? It sounds like I was super-productive. Every extra minute, I was either producing or consuming. But something — more than just sleep, though that's critical too — is lost in the busyness. Something too valuable to lose.
Boredom.
Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that's where creativity arises.
My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone. When I am lying in bed as my mind wanders before falling to sleep. These "wasted" moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital.
They are the moments in which we, often unconsciously, organize our minds, make sense of our lives, and connect the dots. They're the moments in which we talk to ourselves. And listen.
To lose those moments, to replace them with tasks and efficiency, is a mistake. What's worse is that we don't just lose them. We actively throw them away.
One of my roommates and I have been talking recently about how we can take great things/ people that LORD abundantly blesses and graces us with and turn them into an ultimate thing that replace the LORD in our lives. We are such beings of idolatry even without realizing it. These small things are where we usually find ourselves reveling in the most joy, or the most under bondage. I know for myself I sometimes don't realize I'm idolizing something/ someone until I get smacked in the face with some loving honesty.
Coming out of a semi difficult season in my life, I look back and am disappointed in myself for not finding joy in things that in hindsight are so apparently the LORD working in my life. Instead I either moped around with a complaining & unappreciative spirit, or I busied myself so that time would pass quickly. Clearly the first of my responses listed is selfishness, but the later, business, that isn't the best response either.
Can business be idolatry? Can the people or things that we busy ourselves with become idolatry?
It's a subconscious comfort of sort, instead of resting solely in the LORD, from whom all blessings flow.
This morning I woke up to quite the thunderstorm here in Nashville. I LOVE THUNDERSTORMS. It is one of those things that awakens my heart and soul, like my lungs and every pore in my body opens up so that my soul can inhale it's resounding beauty and be completely refreshed. I pulled up the blinds a little on the window next to my bed so that the breeze was able to meet my face, lit some incense, and just laid there for a while breathing deeply. Enjoying the smell of it, and the breeze from it, until I drifted back to sleep.
These small things are the times I want to be more intentional about enjoying. To just slow down and observe my surroundings, whatever they may be. The places, the people, and the things of every season.
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