Every once in a while, a voice inside me says, “I’m done.” I’ve used up all my energy and concentration, and I need some downtime. I need to spend some quality time doing nothing.
All of us need downtime—some need less than others and some seem to need way more than others. Why is this? One of the reasons might be what people do when they’re doing nothing. Some people waste their time when they’re wasting their time; and end up needing more time to waste (stay with me here).
How do you find the path that will make a real difference—in your life or the lives of others?
When in your life do you find the time to do the important things?
We all have things we must do—the practical and the necessary—making a living, taking care of our stuff; but a lot of what drives us is more fundamental.
Every day I look at my calendar to see what meetings I have and begin to psych myself up for them. I look at the people that are going to those meetings and what I need to accomplish. I think about what kind of people I will be meeting. It’s not that I don’t like people—I do—it’s just that when I interact with people it takes significant energy, and I have to bring that energy to the surface. It’s like warming up a diesel engine.
Yes, that’s right, I’m an introvert.
I’ve always been interested in experiences that make people explore and face their ultimate limits.
It might just be curiosity, but it might be something deeper. The opportunity to explore our ultimate limits might tell us something about ourselves that we would not have known otherwise. It gets to the core of who we are on a physical, mental, and emotional level.
An intimate knowledge of our responses to more extreme hardships and challenges would help us understand our responses to all of our challenges. It would certainly give us a boost in confidence as we face our everyday challenges.
How well do you know yourself?
How much do you like yourself?
These two questions are inexorably intertwined. The more we know ourselves, the more likely we will be to become people we would naturally like and admire.
But getting to know ourselves takes effort.
We need to spend time with ourselves – alone and with others. We can know ourselves better through spending time with other people, as long as we stay aware of our thoughts, our reactions, and our emotions.