What may be more important to realize is this: each day is a blank slate.

The moment we open our eyes and take our first breathe of the new day – our free will is back for keeps.

But it can be hard to remember that sometimes we aren’t robots. Not every time we get up on Monday do we need to become mindless drones: take shower, brush teeth, get in car, pick up coffee, go to work, fill out papers, check watch for lunch break, fill out papers, thank God for lunch, fill out papers, fill out papers, get back in car, drive home, make dinner, watch Simpsons, turn on Mets game, go to bed.

Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.

No, life isn’t all routine, but it can sure feel like it. Humans naturally crave familiarity and security, but we also have a natural crave for spontaneity and change. Life is all about finding that elusive balance between the two. To keep life interesting, but not turn it to insanity.

I believe that one of the most healthy and truly alternative things we can do is nothing.

How much could one learn about their self if they just spent a day depriving themselves of their routine doings? No more doing – just being. Just existing. Just soaking in the fact that I am this living, conscious, and breathing conglomeration of matter. It’s so bizarre, yet we rarely give the time to embrace the center of our beings.

Just spend a full twenty-four hours doing as close to nothing as possible. I don’t even mean something as little as watching TV. Just sit there. Just lay in the sun. Be the lump on the log.

Doing nothing – like most things that are rewarding – is incredibly difficult.

Beginners will find that doing nothing takes practice. We fear nothing, become averse to it, think negatively about it and choose to believe that anything is always better than nothing.

What if we could become content and satisfied with “nothing?” Then we wouldn’t have to always cling to the always desperate notion of “anything.”

Don’t shower. Don’t eat. Don’t even get out of bed if you don’t have to. Meditate on the self without the need for these “necessary” conditions. You are still you – just a more dirty, maybe more hungry, and less-doing you. But the self is there, and you begin to unravel the core.

The core is consciousness – the only condition necessary for being and experience. It reveals the most basic truths to existence. The ones that can only be observed through the eyes of one’s own mind. There is nothing to fear from doing nothing – it is the foundation of all actions.

