The Value of Lightness

The Value of Lightness

Lightness

Are there things in your life that feel heavy and “work”-like?

For me, dinner has long felt like a task that really weighed me down. I didn’t like how it needed to be planned, I didn’t like how long it took to make, I didn’t like how short it took to eat, and I didn’t like how I didn’t appreciate how it tasted once I’d cooked it. The action was wholly undesirable to me. Yet I had to eat — and so did my family. What was I to do? I needed to find a way to enjoy the process of the action — the beginning, middle, and end — not just getting to the end, and the results it would bring.

To grow in my enjoyment of my heavy task, I began paying attention to the places in my life where I was able to “play” and enjoy the process of an action, and I paid attention to the places where I was not able to do this. I began noticing if I made time to “play” each day in those spaces that felt good, it supported me in bringing more play into the places that feel more heavy, serious and “work”-like. By contrasting my feelings of “play” and of “work”, I found myself with more space to “play” in the heavy stuff and the lighter it became.

This leads me to connect the “work” of making dinner to the “work” of business ownership; no matter what may feel like “work” in your life, there is immense support available to you through learning about the value of lightness, and how efficient it is in getting stuff done.

photo credit: Anant Nath Sharma
language inspired by Lama Marut’s “Be Nobody”