Episode 248 - You Don't Need to Fill the Gap

Hi I'm Keith and welcome to Lighter Than You Started. It's Saturday and today I'd like to talk about ten minutes. Not these ten minutes specifically, although you're very welcome to them. I'm thinking about those unexpected little pockets of time that occasionally appear in the day. You're ready earlier than expected.

Someone you're meeting is running ten minutes late. Dinner has another fifteen minutes in the oven. You've arrived somewhere before everybody else. You're waiting for the kettle to boil. There's a gap and what do we do?

Quite often we fill it, the phone comes out, we check our messages, we look at our email, we scroll through something, We find a small job. Perhaps we think I could use this time too and suddenly those ten unexpected minutes have been recruited. They have a purpose now. They're useful. Job done.

Accept. I wonder whether every gap in our lives needs filling. We tend to be slightly uncomfortable with empty space. Think about waiting for somebody in a cafe. Years ago you might have sat there looked out the window watched people read the menu 17 times wondered what somebody at the next table was talking about.

Done. Nothing much. Now. The moment we're alone there's a very good chance we'll reach for our phone. And I'm not criticizing phones.

They're astonishingly useful things. They connect us with people, entertain us, help us work, tell us where we're going, allow us to photograph our lunch for reasons future historians will struggle to understand. But they're also extremely effective gap filling devices. There's almost no piece of empty time that's too small for them. Thirty seconds in a queue phone.

Waiting for the lift phone. Advert break phone. Someone drawn to the loo while you're in the restaurant phone. We'd remove almost every unoccupied moment from the day and perhaps something gets lost when we do. Not something dramatic.

I'm not suggesting that three minutes without Instagram will reveal the meaning of life. It might but I wouldn't rely on that. I mean something much smaller. The chance for our attention to simply wander. We don't talk much about wandering attention because we're usually trying to improve our focus.

Focus is good. Concentration definitely matters. Being present matters but perhaps there's also value in the change in you having nothing particular to concentrate on. That's often when odd little thoughts appear. You remember someone you haven't spoken to for ages.

An idea arrives. You notice something. A solution to a problem pops into your head while you're thinking about something completely unrelated. Or perhaps absolutely nothing happens. That's allowed too.

We don't need every quiet moment to produce an insight. Maybe it simply gives our minds a little room. Think about music. If there are no gaps between the notes it wouldn't really be music. It would just be one continuous noise.

The space is a part of it. They give shape to what comes before and after. Perhaps days are similar. If every available moment is occupied: work, messages, podcasts, music, television, news, scrolling, jobs, conversations, more messages, more scrolling. We can move from waking to sleeping without very much silence at all.

Even relaxation can involve input. We sit down to rest and immediately put something on. Again there's nothing wrong with that. I rather enjoy television. I like music and obviously as the person currently talking into your ears I'm not going to make a particularly convincing argument against podcasts.

But perhaps we don't need something all at the time. Sometimes nothing is quite nice. Saturday can be particularly interesting in this respect. Weekdays often have their structure imposed on us. Meetings, appointments, store runs, work, deadlines, travel.

Then Saturday arrives with a little more space and what do we do? We fill it. Shopping, jobs, plans, things we've been meaning to do, things we think we ought to do. And before long Saturday isn't acquired in the itinerary. Perhaps that's exactly what you want.

A busy Saturday can be brilliant but if a small gap appears between the things maybe we don't have to immediately close them. Perhaps the gap can remain a gap. Sit down. Look out the window. Stand in the garden.

Wait without entertainment. Let the kettle boil without accomplishing something else at the same time. That last one might be quite radical but just stand there for approximately two minutes. You might even hear the chattel. I think there's something else happening when we constantly fill small spaces.

We can start to see empty time as wasted time. Ten minutes where we didn't achieve, consume or engage with anything becomes ten minutes lost. But was it? Perhaps those ten minutes are the rest of the day a little breathing room. We understand this physically.

If you're carrying boxes from one room to another you don't regard the moment when you put one down and straighten your back as wasted. It's part of being able to pick up the next one. Maybe mental space works similarly. A few minutes between things may not need to become another thing. They can simply be the space between them.

And perhaps that's especially useful if your life currently feels full. When we're busy our instinct is often to search for larger solutions. A free afternoon. A weekend away. A holiday and all of those things can be wonderful.

But perhaps there are also tiny pieces of rest already hiding inside ordinary days. Five minutes before the next thing. Three minutes waiting. Ten minutes because somebody's late. We just keep filling them before they had a chance to feel like rest.

Maybe today you could experiment. The next time a little pocket of unexpected time appears notice the urge to fill it. You don't have to resist. Perhaps it's something you genuinely want to do but just notice it and ask does this gap actually need anything in it? Maybe the answer is yes.

Maybe you want to message someone, read something, listen to something. Fine but perhaps occasionally the answer will be no and then see what happens. Perhaps you'll notice the weather. Perhaps you'll watch people passing. Perhaps you'll remember something.

Perhaps your mind will wander somewhere completely pointless. Wonderful! Not every journey needs a destination and not every minute needs a job. We spend so much of our lives trying to create space perhaps sometimes we just simply stop filling the space that's already there. Today's thought for you.

You don't need to fill the gap. Sometimes the space between things is part of day too. Thank you for sharing this moment with me and as always I hope you end today feeling lighter than you started. Do gently and I'll see you tomorrow on the flip side. You can now listen to the Lighter Than You Started podcast on Alexa.

Simply say, Alexa, play the Lighter Than You Started podcast. Lighter Than You Started is a thing of something publishing production.