What if it Were Less Work to Be You?
How much work does it take to be you? There’s a good chance you’ve never stopped to reflect on that question, but that question may hold the key to an easier life, and a life of greater contentment.
Does it make sense that just being you should feel like hard work? Doing takes work, but being?
Being only seems to take a lot of work if you’re thinking about yourself. The instant you stop, it’s effortless. It’s an example of how you can’t really think about yourself and fully be yourself at the same time.
In other words, thinking veils being and appears to make it into a task to be performed, rather than a life function that takes care of itself.
If you’re not thinking about your heart, does it still beat? If you’re not thinking about oxygenating your blood, do you still breathe? These are essential, elemental physical functions that require no effort on your part.
When being is confused with doing, effort seems to be involved.
Can simply being be any different? When being is confused with doing, effort seems to be involved. When it becomes obvious that being doesn’t require any thinking, or any doing, being is allowed to shine, without being weighed down by extraneous thinking.
Are you still you when you’re in deep sleep? Is your being less “there” simply because you’re asleep? Is there any activity you can engage in that actually diminishes your “being-ness?”
Not even thinking intensely about being can diminish your being-ness, but thinking can obscure or veil your being, hiding it from sight.
Confusing doing with being means it’s likely you’re also confusing accomplishment with fulfillment.
Accomplishment is the product of doing, but fulfillment is the product of being. If you’re too busy doing all the time, fulfillment will be elusive because you’ll be too busy to notice it.
Being able to notice and appreciate a sense of fulfillment requires reflection, and reflection is facilitated by a quiet mind; one that isn’t constantly doing.
What do you suppose would happen if you were willing to look past all that doing, and simply experience unencumbered being? If you’re willing to do that, what you’re very likely to encounter is a deep peace, one that requires absolutely no effort from you.
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