There's a kind of taking that requires immense doing, and a kind of doing that demands you take nothing seriously at all.
This is basically the reverse of the implied meaning of the phrases "take it easy!" and "do whatever it takes!".
There's this creator on YouTube who goes with the "Do what excites" mantra and I think it's actually a useful lens, as excitement can be a compass pointing toward what matters to you.
The issue however is that excitement alone doesn't tell you when to push through the boring middle or just walk away and pivot.
Excitement gets you started and then it's the interplay between taking and doing that keeps you going. You need the doing to honor what excites you, and the taking to let that excitement breathe and evolve rather than burn out in a frenzy of unsustainable action.
Master one without the other and you'll either drift aimlessly or collapse from exhaustion.
We see the casualties of imbalance everywhere. There's the person who takes everything easy, like so easy that days blur into weeks and plans dissolve into maybes, which makes potential forever remain potential.
I can't fully grasp the logic yet of this remastered version of "taking it easy".
Usually, "taking it easy" comes after a lot of work to push the needle forward has been done and this is in itself just a temporary transition phase before the next push. It's meant to be recovery of sorts and not a permanent state.
Of course, I can't judge anyone's path too harshly as sometimes what looks like drifting from the outside is actually necessary wandering before transformation.
But there's a difference between strategic pause and indefinite postponement.
Then there's the opposite of that. Which is the one who does whatever it takes until "whatever it takes" becomes everything it takes, be it sleep, joy, relationships, health, etc.
They're caught the bug, so to speak, of achievement addiction, so they keep moving fast and can't remember why they started running.
I'm more into this category for the most part, in terms of forgetting why xyz has been started and what the core vision is about.
Oh boy, I'd wake up exhausted and go to bed more exhausted and the irony being that I was so busy just doing that I never stopped to check if I was doing the right things.
It did took a minor breakdown to realize that "whatever it takes" had not so suddenly turned into "everything I have, plus some."
But what does it actually look like to hold both and not in some kind of balance in the usual sense?
Sometimes taking it easy is doing whatever it takes. As in the patience that outlasts the problem or refusal to panic that lets you see clearly.
In such cases, I have to applaud the mental/emotional capacity for holding the fort and not giving in to whims of the present moment.
And other times doing whatever it takes means taking the pressure off yourself entirely. Letting go of the outcome and still doing the work. Showing up without gripping.Trusting the process enough to stop micromanaging every step.
For the most part, this isn't something you figure out once and file away. It's a constant calibration of sorts.
I still have stretch of days and weeks where I get it wrong, as in taking it easy when I should be doing, or do too much when I should be taking.
But I'm learning to gradually recognize the feeling of each, which basically is the emptiness of too much taking and increased tension coming about from too much doing.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.
