“Your brain is most intelligent when you don’t instruct it on what to do – something people who take showers discover on occasion.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb – The Bed of Procrustes
Sometimes slowing down is the weapon to charge ahead. Writer Ryan Holiday refers to this idea as “stillness”. Holiday wrote a book called Stillness Is the Key where he compiled ideas from Stoicism and Buddhism to illustrate the importance of stillness. How many things can we improve by letting them alone or thinking without taking action? The first thing that comes to mind is rest. In Excellent Advice for Living, Kevin Kelly says: “Taking a break is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.”
Sometimes, you can take minimal action, but get tremendous results. When I think about minimal action, walking is the first activity that comes to mind. Soren Kierkegaard said, “I walked myself into my best thoughts.” However, there’s evidence that most philosophers and entrepreneurs have used walking to get ideas. Artist Austin Kleon said in his amazing book Keep Going: “Walking really is a magic cure for people who want to think straight.” Another philosopher who often wrote about walking was Nietzche. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking”, he once said.
This idea of stillness goes beyond having ideas or solving problems. There’s something more profound at play. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who I quoted first in this article, wrote “It is not possible to have fun when you try.” Joy, he argues, can’t be planned or optimized; it just happens. In a world that gives us everything we want as fast as possible, we’re losing the ability to be patient. Lao Tzu once said, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”