Just take a deep breath. In and out. Close your eyes, and give yourself a good stretch. After constantly rushing to finish this, running to go to that, and stressing over all those things, it’s kind of a weird feeling to just sit down and enjoy a minute of serenity. A moment singularly focused on blissful nothingness.

Yet even still, the second we’ve given ourselves this peace, we instantly feel like we have to tackle the next task. But why is that? Is it just our nature to constantly be pushing against the tide of life, or is it something we’ve learned to do? Why is it that we feel as if we are not always moving, we are wasting time?

I get the whole “gotta live life the fullest” idea, but here’s the thing: your fullest is not my fullest, nor is my fullest your fullest. We get so caught up in what we think life should be like that we forget that it is of our own creation. Some people may see living life to the fullest as having a lucrative career, others a big family, and some going out and partying every night. And, even though we each have our own ideas of what we like, these lifestyles, if chosen by their owners, are exactly what each person needs to be “full”. We pass judgement on how other live, forgetting that it really doesn’t matter what we think and we, although collectively as a society try to morph them, cannot change a person’s true desires.

Now I’m not saying that all desires should be accepted, a good bit should be condoned, but that doesn’t mean that all desires are the root of evil. It’s paradoxical which emotions, and therefore actions, are accepted by our society. Our heroes have “righteous wrath.” Our men are allowed power. Our women are expected to be passive. Yet, when we give villains the characteristic of wrathfulness, it’s evil. When men are passive, and women show power, it’s somehow a flaw. Again, it’s all back to interpretation.

So now that we’ve defined the whole idea that we are each our own, with societal labels thrown upon us, each with our own “fullness,” let’s talk about those who like to live in a way that’s purposefully “empty.” It’s kind of like using a “sick voice.” We’ve all done it, acting a little bit sicker than we really are, because it works to our advantage somehow. Either it helps us get out of work or it gives us attention. We just indulge a little bit in our sickness, playing with the pity we earn, because for some reason it is somehow self-satisfying. It’s the same with how we live, sometimes we like indulge in behavior that leaves us feeling a little bit “empty” because it allows for us to seek a new pleasure in our own pain. Whether it be because we get attention, or we let ourselves unlock emotions we usually square away.

In a sense, this could be why we don’t like taking little moments for ourselves. We either consciously believe that we are indulging ourselves, but not in the correct way, or we don’t like the reflection of our life that it gives us. Either way, this moment is very important because sometimes its best just to be in and of yourself. We are constantly bombarded by hundreds of thousands of ways to think, ways to act, and ways to live. But when we take this silent moment, we only have our thoughts, actions, and life left. And it’s in this moment that we find it’s OK to be content with our own pace of life; it’s OK to live without having to be or not to be something.

So, try it. Try just a little moment of nothingness and see what you come up with.