Just Settin’

“The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.”

— Brooks, The Shawshank Redemption

It was the best and worst job I ever had.

I worked there two summers, when I was 16 and 17, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where I grew up. It was called the Experiment Station, a large farm where chemicals were tested on crops. God knows what I ingested out there, but this was the 90s. Nobody worried about such things.

Each morning at 7 a.m., me and four of my buddies met at the old farm trucks. We would rehash the previous night’s activities while the higher ups mapped out our day. Then we headed to the fields to string tomatoes and pick potatoes. Wisely, they separated us into different crews.

At lunch, we’d grab food at my buddy’s house. Maybe play some Nintendo, maybe take turns napping in his two La-Z-Boys. Then we’d head back out. By afternoon, the heat could touch 100 degrees.

After work, we met up, caroused around, got little sleep, met up the next morning and did it all over again.

It was the best.

There was an older man who worked there. He was maybe 60 or 70. I don’t remember his name, but I think about him often because of what he told me. He said in that old Eastern Shore country drawl:

“You know what the world needs more of? People just settin’.”

Not sitting. Settin’ is how he pronounced it. I loved that.

“Everybody’s always running around too fast. People used to sit on porches for hours just watching the world go by. We could use a lot more of that.”

His advice is even more important today.

After all, this was before iPhones. Before TikTok and Instagram Reels had us all addicted. Before AI companions and whatever the hell else is on the way.

Sometimes I find myself looking around in a waiting room, at an airport, or even at the beach, and almost everybody is staring at a phone.

When I start to feel judgmental about this, I recognize the many times that I convince myself checking ESPN.com for the 20th time that day is an urgent matter.

It’s astounding. I sometimes imagine it looks a little like America in the 1950s, when more than half of American men smoked.

And I don’t really blame us for being little addicts.

Tech companies have engineered truly ingenious inventions to tap into our innate reward systems and keep us engaged in order to profit from our attention.

It’s the Doritos for the mind.

And these devices are only going to get better at hypnotizing us. Twenty or thirty years from now, the phones we carry around today will probably seem as primitive as a Walkman does now.

Thus, the ability to sit and do nothing will become an even more vital skill.

Our daily life used to naturally provide these opportunities, places where we couldn’t distract ourselves.

Going to the bathroom, driving, taking a shower. These were places where we just had to be.

But most of us would sheepishly admit the phone gets carried into the stalls with us. We certainly dangerously peek at it while we’re driving. And once self-driving cars come on board, we won’t even have to peek. We can be fully immersed.

The shower is the last place I can think of where we can’t access a screen, and I’m sure someone will crack that code soon.

And meditation is fantastic. I’m a big advocate of it and have been practicing irregularly since my mid 20’s. But for a lot of people it can feel daunting, like one more thing to do in an already packed day.

But just settin’ is different.

You don’t have to schedule it or pencil it into your day. You’ll just naturally find choice points, opportunities that arise where you can either distract yourself or set.

Look for them. And make the difficult decision to not pick up the phone, turn on the TV or listen to something.

Sometimes it’s hard as hell, especially when you’re stressed or tired and your mind wants a quick hit.

When I have been jumping from task to task and my mind is particularly active or obsessive, I almost feel panicky at the idea of sitting still.

But that’s when I know I need it most.

Just sitting still, not meditating, not doing anything, for twenty, fifteen, ten, even three minutes is a radical act these days.

There is an old Buddhist image I love. Imagine a glass of water with dirt stirred into it. At first, it’s cloudy and murky. But if you just set it down and leave it alone, the dirt slowly sinks, and the water clears on its own.

Our minds are the same way. The more we stir and agitate, the cloudier things get. But if we just set the body down, the mud of the mind begins to settle.

And when we stimulate the mind all day, then expect it to just settle down, be at ease, or go to sleep at night, it’s akin to giving a kid a two-liter of Dr. Pepper to sip on all day long and then saying, “Go settle down now.”

It’s an unreasonable expectation.

As Annie Lamott said, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Amazing things can start to happen when we don’t overfeed the mind. Problems get solved. Creative solutions come up. The mind wanders to the amusing nuances of life.

And sometimes, on the other side of that intolerable feeling of boredom, peace starts to arise.

It’s almost like the mind lets go. It stops tapping you on the shoulder to get you to do something else and just chills out for a second.

And you just sit, not in any particular way. You do it in those in-between moments, in waiting rooms, in the backyard, or when you’re waiting for your wife to get ready before you leave the house.

Maybe you watch thoughts come and go, or feel the heart beating.

Maybe you look outward. Notice the clouds and really pay attention to them, as if it’s your last day getting to notice them. Maybe you watch the birds come and go, or listen to the crows, the cicadas, or the harmony of leaf blowers out there in the distance.

We’re always in a hurry, always charged up. And I get it, we’ve got shit to do and emails to answer.

But slowness is still possible.

When the invitation comes to just set, take it.

Not as another thing to do, but just as a way of being for a minute, without having to be anything for anyone, at least for a moment.

One Thing to Try

Find opportunities to not fill the spaces in your day. When you first get up, sit down in your car, or find yourself in a waiting room.

Or just do one thing. Eat or drive without music or podcasts, even for the first five minutes.

When the choice comes up, distract yourself or set.

Just set the body down and notice. That’s it.

And please, for the love of god, let’s stop taking our phones into the bathroom.