Posted: 09 Apr 2009 03:19 AM PDT
Recently, my husband and I were on a long road trip using the cheapest rental car we could find. As a result of our thriftiness, we had a car with only radio access (no ipod connection), which made for some meaningful one-on-one conversation. After a good thirty minutes of talking about work and our to-do-lists and so on, we started to get more creative.
I asked him, "What are the things you enjoy doing the most?"
He replied, "Are you serious? You know what things I enjoy doing!"
"Well… sure, I know some of them… maybe even most of them… but maybe there are things that will be new to me."
My husband, always willing to play along, proceeded to highlight a list of things he enjoys doing, some of which I definitely knew and a few things that were new to me.
Then he proceeded to ask me the same question. I started to list the things I really enjoy doing, and a very strange thing happened. Halfway through my list, I began to tear up and eventually cry a bit. I realized that most of the things on my list were things I WANTED to do, but not things I was actually DOING. Woah, man!
My husband and I proceeded to break down my list and realized that most of the things I enjoy doing are creative in nature (i.e. reading for pleasure, dancing to happy music, listening to inspiring music, and the list goes on and on). Why wasn't I doing any of it?
Initially I blamed it on a lack of time, but eventually we decided that if you really want to do an activity, you tend to make some time for it. Skip past further novice psychoanalysis, and we realized it all boiled down to guilt. I felt guilty spending an hour curled up with a good book or taking the time to listen to an inspiring song rather than using that same hour to do something more "productive" like responding to work e-mail after hours or doing an extra load of laundry.
The Baha'i writings speak highly of engaging in the arts such as music. In one passage, Shoghi Effendi tells us the following:
It is the music which assists us to affect the human spirit; it is an important means which helps us to communicate with the soul.
(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 80)
Abdu'l-Baha tell us the following:
Among certain nations of the East, music was considered reprehensible, but in this new age the Manifest Light hath, in His holy Tablets, specifically proclaimed that music, sung or played, is spiritual food for soul and heart.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 112)
I started thinking that maybe my soul decided to start that conversation to let me know that it's starved for some creative food. Although it's still not second nature, I have allotted myself twenty minutes a day since our road trip to engage in non "productive" activities. I'm starting to think that these twenty minutes might end up being the most productive minutes I have.
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