Beware: in many cases, it’s when we’re attempting to be most useful to the world that we actually end up being the least useful to ourselves.
An outward focus on productivity and getting things done can easily turn into a toxic work ethic that leads us to disregard the things we most need to do for our own personal wellness.
This is classic workaholic-ism.
Now, beware: the remedy I’m going to offer, like most pills, might be hard to swallow.
What we need to become comfortable with and practice is the idea of uselessness.
That’s right—being more useless to the world.
Did that thought make you cringe a little?
It’s got a distinctly counter-culture sound to it that might make you feel uneasy when thinking about.
Which would only further prove my point.
Being useless to the world isn’t an attack on your self-worth. It’s the very means through which you get to be more useful to yourself.
…Time when you get to stop compromising, negotiating, accommodating, pleasing, bending-over-backwards for, and sucking up to others in order to get things done.
Being useless to the world is about total and complete surrender to outward obligations and a wholesome focus towards the calls of your spirit.
Not towards distraction, inaction, or suppression—but towards introspection, healing, and overflowing.
Because we can only ever be as useful to the world as we become useful. And if we’re only ever focused on being useful to others, we never have a chance to be useful to ourselves. And one of the only times we get to ever be most useful to ourselves is when we’re most useless to the world.
Swallow the pill.