May 17, 2026: Being vs Doing

According to Psychology Today, “Both doing mode and being mode are inescapable” and we are always shifting between and/or seeking balance between the two.

         Admittedly, I tend to be more comfortable in the doing mode. I am a goal-oriented, list-making person who starts every day with a plan and a schedule. Even weekends. The tasks may involve hobbies and pleasurable activities, but I know what I hope to accomplish every day.

         One recent Sunday morning our air conditioning unit stopped working. The technician confirmed that we had no freon, a leak in the copper piping, and would need new piping, which could not be installed until the next day. A sunny April day with no AC may not be a crisis in many places, but in Central Florida, it means 90+ degree temperatures with no relief.

         A quick assessment of our day and we made the decision that we would be doing everything possible to stay cool and keep the house cool.  I checked over my to-do list for the day and realized I needed to cross off most of the tasks. No gardening or yardwork today. No baking.   No pot of homemade spaghetti sauce simmering away all day.

         All of a sudden, I was faced with an entire day of being.

         While I did do some productive endeavors that tended to be sedentary, (lesson planning, grading papers) I was left with a great deal of the day unstructured and empty.

         I sat out in the backyard on a rocking chair with my iced coffee, enjoying the breeze and savoring the birdsong. I noticed all the new growth on so many of the plants, and watched the bees and butterflies flit among the flowers.

When the sun pushed away the shade, I went and sat on the lanai, in a chair under the ceiling fan. There I sat and admired our recently completed project of built in shelves and counters, worked on some Words with Friends games, and did some reading.

After a cold lunch on the table overlooking the backyard, Jeff went to take a nap and I wandered out front to refill the fountain with water. While sitting on the front porch waiting for the fountain to fill, I noticed an active and noisy bird in the Magnolia tree.  Upon investigation, I saw its nest and what seems to be some eggs.

Dinner was a chopped salad with fresh herbs that I snipped as I wandered the backyard to stretch my legs between so much sitting. Those treks were so different than my usual backyard trips when I had some sort of task to accomplish.  That day, I meandered, noticed, touched, and breathed. I was “present” as the current terminology goes.

While so much of what I originally had planned had to be rescheduled, that day was a perfect example of a silver-lining to a perceived crisis. It also gave me a chance to truly experience “being”.  It was pretty awesome.