I should do something else.
What a curious and interesting, and sometimes VERY stressful thought.
Today, for the second day in a row, my husband and I got “stuck” in a huge, thundering, massive downpour of rain and we ducked inside an open-air restaurant to wait it out.
The restaurant is a huge white tent on a round wooden platform amidst rice paddies, near a narrow walking trail which is used by scooters, motorcycles and foot traffic.
No wide roads to this restaurant, no big vehicles. Everything has to be carried or wheeled here.
It turns out there’s wifi, so here I am on the internet in Bali.
Then I had the thought “we should be seeing more….we should do something else.”
Because yesterday, we were here in the same restaurant, also in the middle of a huge afternoon thunder and lightening storm.
There is so much to see and do! We don’t have much time here! This is all nice and everything, but we should be in a different restaurant exploring something else.
Oops, er…wait. Halt!
Fortunately, I can catch myself quickly when doing this line of thinking.
Because I know, I will never, ever see everything, do everything, experience every place….this in fact would be impossible.
Having the thought that in this present moment, I should be somewhere else, be with someone different, or be having another experience than I am having is actually quite a bizarre thought.
With that line of thinking, the present is uncomfortable, less than, not quite perfect….or even terrible.
Not good enough.
Who would I be without the thought that I should be doing anything different? That I am missing something? That this moment should be altered somehow?
So relaxed, it’s amazing. To really deeply feel this moment as absolutely fine…WOW.
No need to do anything, go anywhere, change anyone.
Remarkable really.
I look around at the wooden floor, the plant next to me as I type, the straw woven chair, the ducks flapping their wings outside, the delicate drops of rain now, the gray sky….and I am amazed at the beauty and the strangeness.
Relaxed mind, relaxed body. Noticing that soon, I will get up and walk outside now that the rain has stopped.
When I turn the thought around, my original concept becomes “I shouldn’t do anything else.”
This is amazingly radical. Can you imagine never having this thought again that you should do something else than whatever you’re doing?
What if this is the exact best thing I could possibly be doing, here now in this moment? Sitting in the same restaurant, two afternoons in a row, talking with the same family who works here….typing, reading, listening, being.
Why not?
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Much love, Grace