ayoamadu

There was a time I feared stillness.
The quiet felt heavy  a space that demanded explanation. If I wasn’t producing, achieving, or striving, I felt the world might forget me. I lived like a pendulum, always swinging, never resting, until my own spirit began to fray.

It was then I stumbled upon the Dutch word “Niksen” a word that translates simply as “doing nothing.”
It comes from the Dutch verb niksen, derived from niks, meaning “nothing.” Yet its simplicity is deceiving. In Dutch culture, Niksen is not a call to laziness; it’s an invitation to be. It carries within it the quiet wisdom that nothingness, when chosen intentionally, can be profoundly restorative.

At first, I resisted it. Doing nothing felt like failure. But one day, I tried. I sat by the window, watched the light shift across the floor, and listened to the hum of the world without reaching for meaning. For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t rushing toward life, I was in it.

In that quiet, something changed.
Time softened. The mind, unshackled from the need to perform, began to wander freely, like a bird long caged. I noticed small miracles: the rhythm of my breath, the patient sway of trees, the silence between sounds. It was as if life had been speaking all along, but I had been too loud to hear.

I realized then that Niksen isn’t about idleness, it’s about liberation.
It’s a return to the essence of being, where worth isn’t measured by output but by awareness. In doing nothing, I began to feel everything more deeply, the peace, the ache, the wonder.

Now, I make space for Niksen the way one tends a sacred garden. I let my thoughts drift without a destination. I let the moment unfold without interference. I’ve learned that rest is not the absence of purpose, it is the presence of self.

And the benefits of this simple, ancient-sounding practice have been profound:

Mental clarity — my mind feels lighter, less tangled by overthinking.

Creative renewal — ideas often visit when I stop chasing them.

Emotional balance — stillness has taught me how to sit with feelings without drowning in them.

Restored energy — true rest refuels more deeply than sleep alone.

Inner connection — I hear my own voice again, beneath the noise of expectation.

Mindful awareness — life feels fuller when I’m not rushing through it.

Then I remembered, even God rested. After six days of creation, the Scriptures say, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested” (Genesis 2:2). If the Creator Himself paused, not from exhaustion but from completion, then rest must carry divine weight. Niksen, in its quiet form, is a reflection of that sacred rhythm, the holy pause that restores the soul.

And again, the Psalmist whispers, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). In that verse, stillness is not weakness but recognition, a surrender that allows divine presence to fill the silence.

To do nothing, then, is not to waste time, but to create space, space where the Spirit can breathe, heal, and remind us of who we are beyond what we do.

To do nothing, I discovered, is to remember who I am beneath the noise.
And in that remembering, I find not just my wholeness, but my peace in God.