Have you ever sat around and done nothing but people-watch? Based on how often I’ve heard people answer yes to this question, I’m guessing that chances are, you have. If you haven’t, you’ll want to after you read this.
Despite how highly this ranks on many people’s lists of enjoyable activities when asked about it, very few people do it, and even fewer do it with any regularity. Myself included, I won’t lie.
It’s a damn shame too, because life’s simple pleasures offer so much more than the pleasures we’ve become more interested in over the last few decades of progress in our increasingly fast-paced and mind-numbing society.
Listening to the sound of the wind roaring into your open car window and enjoying the process of going somewhere is always better than focusing on getting to your destination and getting stressed out when other cars don’t behave as you’ve decided to expect them to.
Allowing yourself to fully engage in one activity at a time and getting the most out of it that you can trumps attempting to multi-task (something that is physically impossible for our brains to actually do) and allowing yourself to become stressed and overwhelmed.
And simply sitting back to absorb the beauty of the world raging all around you while watching the wind flow through the trees and the people flow through their day beats sitting on your couch and watching a movie you’ve seen a dozen times or a couple TV shows that offer nothing of substance to your life.
We’ve allowed the ease that technology brings to our lives and the distraction that more and more advanced forms of entertainment provides us kill our appreciation for simple things, our natural curiosity for the world, and our connection to a life of a more genuine nature– real connection to the world around us and to each other.
Sure, this new way of life can be quite fun, but judging from the growing demand for pharmaceutical remedies for stress, sleep-deprivation, depression, attention-deficiency, and the like, I’d say it comes at a high price.
(I have other opinions about why we’re so distracted by media and dependent on drugs, but I won’t get into that just now…)
Jersey Shore, or something more?
If watching hours of television and just getting through the day is enough for you, then go ahead and stop reading here. But if life, to you, is about far more– about adventure, personal growth, non-conformity to social standards, and truly experiencing the world– then let’s explore some possibilities, you and me.
Here are a couple of engaging and potentially immensely gratifying things you can do to pass an hour on a quiet afternoon, and I give you my personal guarantee that if you commit to doing any one of the following once, you will leave feeling very satisfied and more relaxed and content.
- People-watch. But don’t just watch them, watch your mind as well. Observe the judgments and immediate perceptions you find yourself making, and ask yourself why you make them. Seek to understand the way your mind perceives, and seek to alter it in beneficial ways. Teach yourself to see things as they are, not as you think they are.
- Drive with no music. Fill the silence with an engaged observation of the beauty coming through the television screen of your windshield– the only reality show you should ever watch. Be present in the journey, and forget about the destination. Let go of your expectations of how others should drive, and let the little inconveniences roll over you without disturbing your calm– it’s not like such things matter at all in the long run anyway.
- Think about bigger things. We spend so much time lost in the day to day things that it’s easy to lose sight of the reasons we do them, the goals we have, the bigger purposes to our lives. Reassess your long- and short-term goals and your current progress with them. Consider what things in life truly make you happy, and figure out ways to give those things more precedence. What impact do you want to have on the world around you? How are you doing that? How could you be doing that?
- Meditate. Seriously one of the greatest things you can do in the way of sanity preservation and stress reduction, and it can be practiced by anyone. Simply sit somewhere completely quiet and let your mind rest. Empty your head of all thoughts, all plans, all responsibilities… let go of everything. Close your eyes and focus on feeling your heart, feeling your body. Ignore the urge to speak in your head, and gently push away thoughts as they arise. Just relax and take deep breaths. Clear your mind and just be. I promise you, your brain will thank you.
- Read something. Take an hour or even half an hour to read, not a novel though. Read something on a topic you want to know more about, something inspiring, something that makes you think. Expand your knowledge a bit. Look through things that interest you for a dormant passion. Learn something new. Grow. Become more.
The difference between a rut and a grave…
If you’re not just a little bit better today than you were yesterday, you’re not living– you’re existing. You’re passing time until you die. The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole, and getting out of ruts involves little more than one single action each day toward a goal of some kind or self-betterment in general.
A single action each day. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Achieving great things becomes possible and even simple when you break it down into small, actionable steps that can be done each day.
The TV will tempt you to take a break from life and shut off your mind; ignore it as often as you can.
The daily routine will make it effortless to shut out the world around you; fight against the auto-pilot tendency and be fully present in everything you do.
Our responsibilities can distract us from the bigger picture; focus often on your motivations and goals, and never lose sight of the significance everything you do can have on your life.
The simple things have the potential to unlock some of the greatest happiness we can experience, as well as teach us some of the most profound things about ourselves. Our experience in life is directly related to the effort we put into getting the most out of it and truly opening ourselves to the beauty of it and to everything it has to show us.
Who knew people-watching could do so much for your life?
I absolutely agree with your insights about meditation. In fact, sometimes it’s the only way I can fall asleep at night. All your ideas here are particularly enlightening, though I have to disagree partially to your statement about multitasking. My husband was trained to specifically multitask while in a one-manned vehicle tracking IED’s in Iraq. Still, I agree that in normal circumstances that it’s ineffective.