Do Nothing

This week I was given a challenge that required me to test my patience and put me out of my comfort zone. The challenge was to do nothing for ten minutes.

I am a pretty self-conscious person. I can't say that I don't like attention, because I do like certain types of attention. If a teacher points out something I've done in front of the class and says it's good, I like that kind of attention. If I tell a funny joke and people laugh, I like being noticed.

But in this case, I was supposed to just stand there and do nothing. You see, this is not the kind of attention I like; this is the kind of attention where people can judge me for how I look, and how I act. In the other cases, people were focusing on something I had created, something I was proud of or worked hard on. In this case, all of their focus goes on to me, myself, and I.

Fortunately, I chose a place to stand for ten minutes that people would just pass by me without noticing. Tons of people went by me in the wood commons. I didn't even get laughed at or anything of that sort. Most people didn't even notice me! It was a huge relief.

The biggest challenge was actually standing there for ten minutes without thinking. I like to think I'm not a boring person, and if I can be thinking deeply I can entertain myself. However, I was not supposed to be thinking about anything at all in this situation. So I was bored out of my mind! I checked my phone for the time constantly (which I guess broke the rules, but I didn't care) because I was waiting for it to be over so I could do something again.

Doing nothing can potentially allow you to put yourself out of your comfort zone and into the real world. For me, it definitely made me uncomfortable. But it is not something I would want to do again; if I had hypothetically gotten a higher understanding of the world around me, I'd be more inclined to do this again. But nothing of that sort happened. In fact, nothing happened.