I used to complain to my parents about their uncontrollable urge to fill every corner of the house with stuff. That lonely corner needs a plant. This blank spot needs a frame or a painting. That tabletop needs another vase.
I remember telling them, “Even space needs space for itself,” admittedly delighted at the sageness of the phrase I seem to have conjured out of thin air. And I stand by it. It’s true, even beyond the realm of the physical.
I’ve found that there’s a real scarcity of the kind of space I can’t fill with an ornament or a plant—the space in my mind, the space on my daily schedule, the space for authenticity.
Space needs space for itself.
A question worth asking: Do I remember the last time I was truly bored? What a treat it is to be bored without guilt, without the anxious urge to busy the senses with anything that may trigger a dopamine spike. I used to be so good at it.
As a kid, I was trained for boredom. No phone until I was in Grade 6. No computer of my own until right before college. No smartphone until I was about 19—already deep into college at that point. There was the TV and there were books, of course, but other than that, it was many afternoons and nights of just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.
So much space.
Last year, I downloaded the Opal app on my phone. It limits the usage of certain phone apps during certain periods of the day. For instance, I can only check Instagram right after lunch and dinner. There are ways to bypass the limit (whether or not this is a good thing, I’ve yet to decide), but it gets increasingly difficult to do so the more I do.
It says, my daily average screen time has gone down by 30.1% since I started using it a year ago. Sounds like a lot but I don’t really feel it. Sometimes, maybe as a side effect of the app, I feel a sudden compulsion to just disappear from it all and be a permanent digital nobody—full Cal Newport mode.
I doubt I’d ever do it. Although, like many of my friends, I’ve come close multiple times. It’s so tempting, but the resistance feels just as strong as the temptation.
Towards the end of 2023, author Ryan Holiday revealed that his “lodestar” word for the past year was “less.” “Part of the reason I want less is so I have room for more,” he writes, “More stillness. More presence.”
More value, less clutter. More of the five things that actually matter to us, less of the 45 other things that merely keep us busy. More no’s so we can say yes to the things that matter.
More space.
I often think about the balance between doing too much and not doing enough. A part of me used to think that the busier we are, the more worthy we become because we are contributing more to the world. But in practice, it was a roadmap to burnout.
I don’t think busy is necessarily a bad thing, though. However, what we need is a kind of busy that’s not simply directed at itself, busy for busy’s sake. The modern human being thirsts for busyness that’s directed at some worthy end. And knowing where this end is goes a long way.
Busy with meaning. Less ambiguity. More clarity. Less noise. More focus. There is space for this type of busy.
As I’m writing this, I realize that this all sounds so privileged and out of touch with reality. And it is. But I think it’s supposed to be.
To behold such space in our lives is a privilege; it barely has a place in our current reality. And as with things of privilege, if it isn’t freely given, it must be worked for.
There’s space for anything we want more of. There’s space for doing nothing. There’s space for that workout. There’s space for that date. There’s space for that sunrise. There’s space for meaningful work. There’s space for the life we want.
If only we took out the trash in our heads. If only we stopped caring about the opinions of people we don’t even like. If only we respected ourselves enough to say no when we want to. If only we delayed gratification. If only we took the time to know ourselves better.
If only we left some corners undecorated. If only we turned our phones off and stared at the ceiling for an afternoon. If only we did the work to let go.