THE IMMENSE SEA

If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF DOING LESS in a world that has increasingly embraced a crazy kind of more — more activity, more things, and even, strangely, more exhaustion. More running in circles to fulfill someone else's requirements. This book presents a different, calmer, and surprisingly productive way of approaching our work and life. But there are reasons we often drown in, or hide behind, long, jam-packed days. Why, in fact, are we so busy?

BUSY CAN FEEL GREAT

Of course, sometimes being busy can feel great. When we are busy earning a living, effectively leading others, achieving academically or artistically, and doing all the things that win us the admiration of partners, parents, and friends, we feel productive, satisfied, and emotionally and intellectually engaged in the business of life. This kind of busy energizes us; the other kind of busy leaves us bored, overwhelmed, and filled with a sense of failure. This book is about that kind of busy — that crazy, nonstop, way-too-busy ceaseless activity that exhausts our efforts and yet leaves us feeling as if we are getting nowhere. This is what I call busyness.

Frequent signs of busyness are debilitating stress, pretending and posturing to mask self-doubt, yelling or loss of emotional control, and avoidance of difficulties. This last point is particularly significant. Many of us inhabit a busyness-as-religion world where it is all too easy to fill our days with overwork or sensory overstimulation so that we don't have to face the difficulties or hard truths of our lives. If we are unhappy, busyness makes a convenient excuse so that we don't have to acknowledge what's not working in our jobs or our families. Sometimes stating how busy we are becomes code for "I must be (please, I hope I am) measuring up to expectations, because, after all, I'm constantly doing, giving, striving, achieving, and working just as hard as I possibly can!"

If we are unhappy, busyness makes a convenient excuse so that we don't have to acknowledge what's not working in our jobs or our famililes.

Then again, it's true that there is so much to do. People must eat. Humans get sick and require care. We have jobs to accomplish, businesses to run, things to fix. In any one day, there are all sorts of tasks — from the mundane to the certifiably daunting — that we would like to complete. Plus, beyond our personal welfare, many of us worry about the financial, environmental, and resource challenges facing our communities, our nation, and our planet; these issues are enormous and, arguably, unprecedented. Our sense that there is too much to do is real and deserves acknowledgment and at times quite a bit of respect. Still, even in the face of daunting and overwhelming challenges, I have come to believe in the power of less.

DISCOVERING THE POWER OF LESS

When I was twenty-one years old, I took a one-year leave of absence from Rutgers University. This was one of my first experiences of choosing to do less — I realized that I needed to stop, to step outside the prescribed path of going directly from high school to college to developing a professional career. I needed to get another perspective about my choices and my life. This one-year leave turned into nearly ten years as a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center.

One of my work assignments during that time was to be in charge of the draft horse farming project at Green Gulch Farm (part of the San Francisco Zen Center) in Muir Beach, California, about five miles outside of Mill Valley. One of my teachers was Harry Roberts, a Yurok Indian–trained shaman, naturalist, cowboy, and Irish curmudgeon, and one day he asked me, "Do you want to know the three most important tasks of a human being?" I didn't hesitate to answer yes. "There are three tasks that matter in this lifetime," Harry said.

"The first task, though not the most important task, is to quiet the busyness in your mind. The second is to find your song. And the third task is to sing your song."

Harry's three essential tasks are what I now consider the essential underpinnings for transforming busyness into composure and results.

Quiet the Busyness in Your Mind

Harry Roberts spoke simply and directly about the practice of mindfulness long before that word came into more popular use. Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to our inner life and the world around us. It begins by noticing how busy our minds are, how easily and habitually our minds jump from thought to thought, often residing in the past or in the future — anywhere but right here, right now. Quieting the mind generally begins with taking the time to be still, to be quiet, and paying attention to the breath and body. It does not mean we stop thinking, but we reduce the noise and increase our focus and concentration.

This process is like applying WD-40 to our minds. Increasing our awareness and paying conscious attention to our inner and outer life loosens the somewhat hardened or rusted parts of our thinking. Often, without even noticing, we get a bit stuck in mental habits and assumptions that underlie and drive our thinking. Applying some attention can loosen these patterns. This can mean increasing our ability to either narrow or expand our focus — whichever is most effective and refreshing to our habitual ways of thinking. Quieting the busyness in our mind can open the door to experiencing the sacredness of life in general and our own wondrous life even in the midst of everyday activities. It is something we can practice at any time, in any moment when we want to let go of the activity-driven busyness that can make us feel so depleted.

Find Your Song

Finding your song describes your ability to access your deep power — which is your appreciation for being alive. This embraces both who you are and all that you have right now as well as the greater possibilities you imagine and envision for the future. We can hear our song only when our minds are quiet, when we can reflect on what is truly engaging and important to us — what brings us the greatest sense of belonging and of accomplishment. Finding our song means discovering our fierce and tender heart, where we feel deeply connected to all that surrounds us. Though our jobs and professional careers are important, our song is much deeper and wider than our work. Our song includes our way of being in the world, our personal relationships, our daily routines, and how we create a sense of...