At a certain point, for some, life can seem to become a kind of relentless, tiresome doing that seems to just go around in a loop every day. A bit like groundhog day, waking up, to get things done. The things done might vary, the surroundings might change, but the basic premise, the basic mindset, is that things need doing, and I need to get them done. Without me, they will not get done, and so something bad will happen. So I have to do them, even if I don’t want to.
Of course life has a flow, there are things to do in the day, but a sense of weariness and heaviness and then resistance to doing can come about when we make the future achievement of a certain task our main priority, resisting life now until it is the way we want it to be. Then we feel as if we are pushing against life to do something, so that we can finally stop resisting it when something is done or completed.
We have a habit of straining towards an end goal, rather than flowing towards it. When you are just flowing, the end result is not more important than now. The end result is the same as now, it is one with now, and so what you are doing can take on a certain restfulness, a certain fullness or totality, rather than just a draining strain that you are struggling to get away from just so something can "get done".
We tend to make "getting something done" primary, and a sense of presence secondary. Finally getting something done can feel so good because it is no longer like a weight bearing down on us, the burden is no longer there.
But it is important to notice how much you have just made up. What you think NEEDS doing, probably doesn't NEED doing in itself. It is just there, and then you act. The NEED adds a strain and a burden and a fear, but to say I NEED to do this or you NEED to do that is so common in our culture that it seems normal.
If you are mindless for a moment, there is nothing to achieve. Certainly nothing to make you feel more complete. In that ever-present fullness you can feel as the sense of universal existence, things can be done, you can have an idea of what you would like to do, but it takes place in an already-completeness. There is a sense of peace, of perspective, the little person struggling to just do everything before the end of the day is no longer an all-encompassing energy. There is space.
And then what you do is not only more enjoyable, less draining, but also more intelligent. There is a certain quality to it, one that isn't condemning life as it is, one that isn’t even interpreting life as it is. In a sense you already have that good feeling of fullness, that feeling you get when you achieve something, but it doesn't have to be dependent on something being done or not.
The need to achieve, at a certain point, becomes a never-ending cycle of misery. If it can be let go of, or recognised as no longer in service to useful action or achievement, then a new way of doing can flow into your life, where the presence is primary, and the achievement is secondary - a natural by-product that is no longer needed so desperately.
I hope that makes sense...
Adam
