There’s a lot to get done during the holidays. But our Western approach to getting something done often contrasts the Eastern approach to getting something done. And yet perhaps there’s no better time to adopt a more Eastern approach than the holidays.
The Western approach tells us there’s no value in sitting around. In so much of our part of the globe, it’s all about how much you accomplish, and accomplishment looks like success and money and things. Nothing wrong with any of that, unless that’s the only thing that accomplishment looks like.
A more Eastern approach tells us that “sitting” is highly prized and perhaps accomplishes the most important things in life.
What if accomplishment this holiday season was the simple act of sitting quietly with your child before the Menorah or Christmas tree?
Because many adults feel they were valued as children only for how they “performed” and what they could do, those adults now don’t know how not to do. When things are quiet and cozy, they get the itch. The itch is made up of two things: being cozy doesn’t register as “doing,” so it feels like not doing enough. And, “doing” feels much more familiar. So they scratch the itch and get busy.
Another way to say it is that “doing” often reflects intolerance for connectedness or intimacy, whether emotional or physical.
During the holidays, this intolerance for intimacy might look like the woman who always seems to have one more thing to do in the kitchen or office, at the very moment her husband wants to snuggle. Or the intolerance for intimacy might look like the man who has to throw down salt one last time on the dinner or sidewalks the second his wife looks at him with loving eyes as they settle in front of the fireplace.
Perhaps everyone would have a better holiday season if we could just sit, and let moments of intimacy connect us to our hearts and each other. It’s OK. We can always create separateness. If you’re a doer, you’ve got that down.
So while even the Buddha is impermanent, there will always be moments to comfortably connect, and isn’t that what we all want at the deepest level, especially during the holidays?
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