When I first read about it, a Buddhist teaching seemed strange. It is the teaching of Aimlessness. I’m trying it out by establishing an aimlessness hour twice a week. So far, I’m loving it. Aimlessness means not setting an object or goal in front of me, as I often do daily. To do otherwise – to be Aimless – has always seemed lazy and wasteful in our world. What a loss for people living intense and distractable lives.

I am often busy and seeking out things I should do and need to do. This is what most people do: I want this, I like that, I need to do that, I need to do that. If I don’t do what I should and get what I want, I feel frustrated or empty, and happiness is out of reach.

When I make room for nothing, I find peace.

Among other things, I need to think differently; I need a revolution in my head and my thinking. There is nothing wrong with Aimlessness; it is both peaceful and revealing. The monks call this living as the flower does. The flower, they say, understands that it contains everything it needs or wants within it and does not need or try to become something else, something bigger, as is the affliction of humans.

Every day, someone messages me to say I should be writing for the New York Times, writing a book about Zip, or publishing my spiritual quest into a pamphlet or book. Why, I wonder, isn’t it enough to post my photos and thoughts and move on? Why do I need to do more to be successful or perhaps wealthy?d Resisting this has made me happier and my life more fulfilling. Because I can think, I can feel.

I’ve learned from the flower. It’s possible to be beautiful; the God I worship lives inside me. I don’t have to look for it and should never turn it into a chore or obligation. I am good where I am. That is enough.

The American disease preaches that we can never afford to be aimless. Life is too complicated and expensive for that. I am learning to think differently. Like the flower, I have everything I need within sight of me. A practice of Aimlessness sometimes makes me happy, and I let go of the pressure of always doing more, having to do this or that whenever I have spare time.

Aimlessness, the habit of doing nothing at times, of being a kind of flower, leaves room for happiness and meaning. Today, I’m doing it just before meditating. The answers are inside of me.