Oftentimes I feel guilty when I am not doing something. Our culture makes us believe that we have to be "productive," productive in the economic sense. But this morning I caught myself just staring out of the window into the first snow of the season and admiring the landscape, and admiring the beauty, and .....just being, being content and in awe and enjoying myself without doing anything. Doing something with intent is fine, but doing something because we believe we should be busy all the time for the sake of being busy, not so much. A common dialogue when running into someone we know goes something like this: A: "How's it going? What have you been up to?" B: "Oh, I've been busy." Being busy has become a virtue, and when you are not busy you are lazy - and who wants to be called lazy?

If it weren't for that relentless cultural and economic nudge I would spend my days reading and sipping tea and seeing friends, and eating of course. That's a whole lot of being and not so much doing. Going deep, going within, being still, taking a moment to not do is very settling, it's grounding.