The space between

I’m an impatient person. I don’t like waiting and I don’t mind doing. I like instant gratification and when things move quickly. I’m so impatient I remarked on my husband’s relative patience in our wedding vows. This isn’t my favorite quality within myself — I get frustrated when people do things slowly, I online shop with reckless abandon and optimize for fast shipping whenever possible, and I can feel my stress levels rising the longer I have to wait for things. There’s a palpable sensation when my patience is tested, and it has negative effects on me and the world around me.

In trying to understand why I’m so impatient, I’ve uncovered that it’s mostly because I don’t like being bored or uncomfortable. The parts in between when things are happening are painful, itchy, and restless. Yet I’ve come to learn that being comfortable in discomfort is crucial to me.

In recent years, I’ve become more and more enamored with the space between — the waiting, the idleness, the stillness. I have forced myself to spend more time in this space and break free from the cult of being busy for busy’s sake. I’ve spent much, much more time this past year than ever before without having much to do, partially by design and partially because the pandemic forced me to.

What I learned is that I actually don’t like being busy at all — I was just addicted to it before. My tolerance for how much I do in a day has plummeted. When I think about my life before and my life now, the amount of stuff I used to cram into a single day almost sickens me. Worse yet, I think I jam-packed my calendar not only because I believed that I should, but also because I was afraid of what I would feel if I didn’t.

One of the things that scares me most about modern society and technology’s role in our lives is not the invasions of privacy or the algorithmic radicalization (although these are pretty scary), but rather the notion that our devices rob us of the space between. Having a phone on you at all times means that the second you’re bored or uncomfortable — there’s a lull in conversation, you’re waiting in line, the meeting you’re in feels pointless — you can entertain yourself. No need to be alone with your thoughts and feelings, you can watch a cute dog video!

What is actually worrisome to me about this is that the boring parts of life — the parts that we don’t want to sit through, face, or be present for — this is where ideas come from. It’s where self-awareness and the ability to process events comes from. It’s where memories are formed and integrated into our being. And when we don’t give ourselves enough time to sit in the discomfort, we don’t possess as much original thought, have as much creativity, or build capacity for truly being present with others.

I think of the poem “Fire” by Judy Brown often because it captures this idea so beautifully:

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

The space between is everything to me now. I can feel myself growing restless and anxious when I don’t have enough of it, when the logs are packed too tight. My ability to pay attention starts to erode, my mind races when I lie down to sleep, and I stop having good ideas. I now try to optimize for the lulls and the long stretches of uninterrupted work, creative, or rest time. This helps me in my work, because it allows me to be more present with my clients and notice what’s not being said just as much as what is. It also helps me in my personal life, because I’m more present with my friends and family and because I’m more comfortable with the mundane reality of everyday life.

When people come to me saying they’ve been struggling with creativity, motivation, or energy, I usually ask: How much empty space exists in your life? What’s your relationship to technology? How do you rest? If I notice they don’t have much free space to think, feel or be, we often start there.

I hope amidst everything — the pandemic, the ridiculous pace of news and events, the trauma of existing in a violent world — you’re able to find some space between today. Even if only for a few minutes.