How to Spend a Weekend (Without Trying to Fix Your Life)
A letter to anyone who is tired of doing things for a reason.
There was a time when I thought mindfulness looked like incense sticks and ocean sounds. Or more recently, like a five-second reel of someone meditating on a mountain, with subtitles that whisper affirmations and a Sufi song playing in the background.
But I’ve come to believe it’s not in the soundtrack. It’s in the silence between the sounds.
The Beginning: A Kind of Fascination
I was fascinated by people who meditated and did yoga when I was in my early twenties. There was something about them — the way they breathed, the way they seemed to be — that felt lifeful. Relaxing. Whole. I remember the first time I sat down for meditation. My mentor made me sit for fifteen minutes. I was exhausted by the end of it. Not refreshed. Not transformed. Just… tired.
But I went back.
I kept going back until three times a week, sitting in silence became a rhythm of its own. And with that practice came reading, searching, studying. I met people who only deepened the fascination. “There’s magic in this,” they said. “This will help you heal. This will take you somewhere.”
That’s when something shifted in me.
The Philosophy I Now Trust
I started letting go of the "because."
I didn’t want to meditate because it made me more productive.
I didn’t want to slow down because it would reduce anxiety or improve my sleep.
I wanted to sit with the present — not for its return on investment, but because the present, when you're really in it, has no debt and no reward.
When you truly pay attention to now, nobody can give you anything or take anything away.
And the moment you start fantasizing about where it’ll take you, the practice changes.
It becomes performance. It becomes transactional.
The soul of it is lost.
Two books that gently pulled me into this way of thinking — and that I keep returning to — are At Home in the World by Thich Nhat Hanh, and Freedom from the Known by J. Krishnamurti.
One teaches you how to breathe while folding your bedsheet.
The other teaches you how to listen to your mind without running away.
A Meditation Begins in the Sink
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote,
“While washing the dishes, one should only be washing the dishes…”
And that line stayed with me.
One weekend, I lit a candle in the kitchen, played soft sounds of water and leaves, and washed the dishes like I was performing a ritual. Not to escape. Not to fix anything. But to arrive. Fully.
Ten minutes for four plates.
I noticed how the water felt on my wrist.
How the soap smelled like lemon and memory.
How the plates became clean, not because I hurried, but because I stayed.
It was slow.
It was enough.
A Weekend in the Present Tense
So here’s a thought.
If you want to spend your weekend differently — not to achieve calm but to be calm — try making it mundane.
Eat light food. Dim the lights. Let your bed be on the floor. Fold clothes slowly. Drink tea like it’s the first time.
And then… sit.
Sit on the floor.
Let your back ache. Observe it.
Feel the tension without fixing it.
Read a page of a book and let it sit inside you.
J. Krishnamurti once asked,
“Have you ever sat very quietly… and watched all the movement of your thoughts?”
I have.
Not every time. Not perfectly.
But often enough to know that presence is not about power. It’s about permission.
To just be.
The Sacredness of the Simple
What if this weekend, you didn’t plan to get better?
What if you didn’t try to fix yourself?
What if you did the dishes slowly, just to do the dishes?
What if you washed clothes like you were folding away your thoughts?
What if you spent time with yourself without reaching for the next thing?
Not to become someone.
Not to be more.
But to remember that you’re already here.
If you’re still reading this, I hope you find five minutes this weekend to simply be. Not to achieve. Not to escape. Not even to heal.
Just to notice. Just to live.
Because maybe — just maybe — the most radical way to spend a weekend is to stop trying to make it count.
From someone who ties a ROI to every single thingy I do, this was such a breathe of fresh air!