Be Still

In the past, I’ve battled the need to be in constant motion, always doing something, continually moving toward a goal of some sort. On multiple occasions, this need led to me entering into things half-heartedly and ultimately failing. The failure led me to believe that I needed to do even more. All of this out of a need to be doing something. I feared that someone would ask the question, “What are you doing now?,” and I wouldn’t have a list of accomplishments and/or projects that I was working on at the time. How could I look someone in the eyes, tell that I wasn’t doing much of anything, and I was trying to figure out this journey called life? Impossible! Or so I thought at the time.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that there are moments, seasons, situations, times, etc. that you need to BE STILL. This revelation didn’t occur overnight. The valuable lessons never do. It took the accumulation of many failed hobbies, failed relationships, multiple incomplete graduate degrees, financial ruin, and a few other hard lessons to wake me up. Why did I feel that being still, merely existing, and taking my time to figure things out was such a problem?

Insecurity, lack of confidence, comparison of myself to others, anxiety, and depression played into the belief that being still was, in essence, a failure. These factors, when combined, made for a dangerous cocktail. After a while, I finally reached my breaking point. I started reallocating my energy to being still. I stopped dreading the idea of telling folks that I was trying to figure things out and I had no idea what I was doing. I started to focus on my own race and no longer worry about what everyone else was doing.

In my opinion, being still takes more energy than being in a state of constant motion. Patience must be deployed on an astronomical level. There is so much negativity tied to the lack of movement in one’s life. There is very seldom any instant gratification linked to being still. There usually aren’t any milestones hit to track progress. There’s a lot of waiting involved. It may not be the most exciting approach to growth for sure. The long-term payoff of staying the course, however, can be life-changing. So the next time the going gets tough, remember that tough get still.

Originally published on Lost in Birmingham, October 11, 2018