Comfort of doing nothing

Do we really want to break the cycle?

“I sit here at the counter of my bor­ing job. Doing noth­ing. Two boys enter the shop. Oh, one has tru­ly bad skin, filled with pim­ples. Prob­a­bly a teenag­er, or in their ear­ly twen­ties.

Is it already so warm out­side? I chat with myself, they’re only wear­ing sweat­shirts. I mean, it’s still just Feb­ru­ary, a day before Fasching — so it can’t be that warm, can it?”

“My mind feels emp­ty, as if I killed it with that vit­a­min D shot yes­ter­day. I was down for days. No won­der — I haven’t been out­side for weeks. My lev­els were already low when I checked my blood in August. I tried lift­ing them with just rec­om­mend­ed two drops a day. Unsuc­cess­ful. Yes­ter­day, I took the week­ly dose all at once.”

“Rap music from my coworker’s playlist plays in the back­ground. I like it. It reminds me of my younger years. He’s back from his lunch break. Big guy, nev­er cold. But now he’s freez­ing.

That’s some­thing dif­fer­ent, I think to myself. So it can’t be that warm out­side.

“I look around the shop — clothes every­where. It makes you want to buy some­thing, any­thing, just to sat­is­fy that feel­ing of bore­dom. I have the urge to buy some­thing. And even if I throw it away — who cares?

Wait. What a stu­pid­i­ty. When did I start act­ing so waste­ful­ly?”

“The phone rings. Of course, I won’t answer.

I’ve been here alone in my quiet­ness for hours. I don’t want to talk to some­one now. Maybe I’m afraid. Maybe I don’t even know how to any­more. Ever since I moved here, away from my friends and fam­i­ly, I’ve been hid­ing. Hid­ing from every­thing.”

As the hours pass, I am more and more glued to my chair. I don’t want to get up or even move. Every noise that doesn’t fit — res­onate with my sur­round­ing, and that hyp­no­tiz­ing Tupac’s song that plays in the back­ground, angers me.

A customer’s hel­lo elec­tri­fied me. It pulls me back. Annoys me. I don’t want to be here.

“You’re not lazy. You’re stuck in bore­dom — your brain is reject­ing every­thing around you because it feels point­less.” I try to explain the feel­ing of empti­ness and melan­choly that I feel.

“ I know I am bored. And I feed it. Keep it alive.” I laugh rolling my eyes.

“Yes, because bore­dom is pre­dictable. You know how it feels, so you keep it. The alter­na­tive is doing some­thing, but that takes an effort. And effort means uncer­tain­ty. Even if you hate being stuck, at least it’s famil­iar.” I argue with myself.

“I know,” I go on, but I also feel anx­ious. I have this ener­gy build­ing up in me, and the more it builds up, the more I push it down. I am stay­ing glued to my chair, tor­tur­ing myself. I feel like I’m going to explode. Like eat­ing too much, sleep­ing too much — too much ener­gy that I don’t want to release.

That’s exact­ly it. Your body wants to move, but your mind refus­es. The more you hold it in, the worse it feels. Right now, your brain sees every­thing around you as point­less, so small dis­rup­tions feel unbear­able. Don’t try to over­pow­er it, try doing one small, inten­tion­al thing that breaks the loop — some­thing dif­fer­ent.

“But What?” I ask myself unin­ter­est­ed.

“I don’t want to break this pat­tern, I want to suf­fer like this till sev­en, until I am done and free to go home.” I com­fort myself.

Come on! Just move! Stretch your arms, stand up and sit back down. Don’t think about it — just move. Rearrange some­thing on the counter, drink water.

I once read that small actions can tell your brain you’re still in con­trol.

Answer the phone — Just once. Not because you have to, but to prove to your­self that you can. Squeeze your hands, clench your jaw, then release. Inhale and exhale sharply. Shake out your arms. This way you can let some of the pres­sure out under your con­di­tions. Change the music. Sit some­where dif­fer­ent. Make your brain to notice the shift.

“I am emo­tion­al­ly sick, I tor­ture myself, and all you give me is — move?!”

It seems sim­ple. But it is not. Mov­ing sig­nals to your brain that you’re not com­plete­ly stuck and releas­es a bit of moti­va­tion. Enough to break the cycle.

“Fine, I’ll try!”

And just like that, com­plete­ly ignor­ing myself, I fall back into the cycle.

I stare at the rack of caps, my eyes strain­ing to sharp­en the image. Two by two in every row. Each has a red stick­er. Dis­count. A sharp, pinch­ing voice is pierc­ing my brain — a cus­tomer slides met­al hang­ers across the rack. Mak­ing that awful squeak­ing sound.

The laugh­ter from the out­side of the shop, brings me back into the present. I force myself to engage. I mean I must. I can’t just ignore the cus­tomers. It feels painful, as if I am oblig­ed to talk to them. To help them out.

I force myself to smile. It helps. It lifts the air. Makes it eas­i­er to breathe. And after all, peo­ple are not that bad. Not at all. They smile back.

Until the next “hel­lo”, that brings the frus­tra­tions back. And easy as that I fall back into the loop of my avoid­ance. The wait­ing. The com­fort of doing noth­ing.