"Keeping Busy"
Most people are uncomfortable with doing nothing (or even a silence in a conversation). Doing a three-day meditation retreat with “nothing to do” strikes many people as terrifying. When we “have nothing to do” we feel antsy and cast about for something to occupy us: have something to eat, call a friend and go out, work on a project, go for a hike, take a trip… we tend to see this as quite natural and believe that doing nothing is “wasting time.” The society we live in praises us for “living an active life.” When we pass a friend at work who asks “How are you doing?” we may say “Oh, keeping busy.” And, in fact, we actually are almost always “keeping busy.” Why do we do this? Is there any harm in it? There is nothing necessarily wrong with any of the activities we keep constantly busy with unless … Unless we use these activities as a way of distracting ourselves—as a way of avoiding awareness of importa...