Do you remember the time when only doctors and dentists owned pagers and cell phones? When needing to get in touch with someone was an actual emergency? Before iPhones and cellphones and laptops, iPods, and Kindles peppered coffee shops and bookstores, interrupted meetings, lunches or shopping trips. Sure it may have been a lot more boring, but boredom inspired imagination and creativity.
I have fond members of those so called boring times. It’s when paper boats were made on rainy days, large cardboard boxes became my box car and catepillars were caught in glass jars as we waited patiently for them to transform. Today feels like more than a hop, skip and a few years from that time. We’ve progressed technologically but at what cost to our sense of simplicity?
As you may have already guessed, I’ve been taking a little break from my blogging. Maybe once every other day instead of every day. The reason? I’m actually on vacation in Hawaii. But before you get all jealous of me, I have to preface this by explaining that I am from Hawaii. Okay still envious eh? Well it’s pretty hot and humid here and all I have been doing is sweating!
On the positive side, I have had ample time to reflect on my life. Whenever I come home, I am reminded of a slower paced existence. Yesterday I spent the day with my dad. He drove around the island. We pigged out on local food, sweet island tea and shave ice and I sweated out the fat and sugar while we road around. As I sat in the car watching the world pass me by, I grew suddenly sick. What was I doing? Shouldn’t I be doing something? Doesn’t my blog need to be written? Shouldn’t I be tweeting? Will I lose my beloved followers if I suddenly disappear?
Then, we stopped at a beach. As I walked in the soft pudding like sand, my slippers sunk in and the waves ran over them like warm hands pulling me in. I walked slowly, waved at two local guys on a boat passing me by and I just exhaled. Simplicity was back and I wasn’t going anywhere.
At that point, I lost my dad for several minutes. I walked in circles until I eventually caught up with him and watched as he used his net to haphazardly pull up fresh bait for his fish. Time passed and I kind of got lost in the moment. It was quite meditative and more natural than doing any type of forced meditation. I have to admit that I enjoyed doing nothing. Doing nothing had a purpose. It provided me with a renewed sense of what it means to be alive. And it got me thinking-how many of us go through life feeling behind, like we’ll never catch up and in doing so miss out on the precious moments of our life. I don’t think life is supposed to be about how much we accomplish or the things we need to do to succeed. I think maybe it’s the kind of moments that sneak up on you, when you least expect it, when you are doing “nothing.” Those are the times that remind you to take a step back, breathe, sink your feet in the sand, and remember the importance of simplicity.
The other day, I took a walk and noticed a big sign that read, “Road Work Ahead.” Then I thought, what a great representation of life. Right when you think you’ve got life figured out, some obstacle, a roadblock, challenges you to rethink your life and you’re stuck asking yourself that age old question, “Why me?”