all of us spend so much time doing.

we go and we start and we continue and we create and do and accomplish and achieve. we create to do lists, we organize them, we beautify them, we fill our calendars and our calendars and lives

we worship activity. we celebrate accomplishment.

we complete task after task, and to what end? to work further down a to do list that never ends, to get to the next task, to embrace the little rush of serotonin or adrenaline or dopamine that comes from completing a task.

and why? sure, we are conditioned to be productive. but this is a naive explanation, it’s diverting the blame, it’s giving ourselves

the self

permission to continue existing in ways that are far from ideal.

blaming something external for the current state of our lives is just a form of avoidance. it gives us permission to continue. it leads us to accept, hell even commit to living the lives we don’t want to be living.

doing is only worth doing if it has meaning. and it’s important to understand what the meaning is, truly, behind a task. because what is not meaningful is not at all worth doing.

doing what is meaningful comes first. the fruits of your labor come second, this is a given, the true reward comes after the action. we always have to wait.

and maybe that’s why doing is really so painful.

completing and accomplishing is not really ‘doing’ at all. it’s taking an action that we anticipate will lead to some reward. it’s a way of killing time, of distracting the mind, to obtain some future benefit.

this mindset is the antithesis of everything we know about the human condition.

it is the antithesis to everything we know about happiness.

because if happiness is about the journey, then surely acting and waiting and distracting as we wait for the next step on the journey to arrive is certainly not a solution. happiness is finding joy in the journey, we know this.

so we should do, we should act, in such a way that does not lead us closer to ends we can’t know the impact of. we should act and do in such a way so that we are doing what is meaningful and valuable and joyful now.

don’t post pone your own happiness. it will never come.

stop waiting.

start doing.

not doing.

doing.