I LOVE THE little pockets of time between the moving and the expectations when I allow myself to just be. Paradoxically, it’s in the moments when I can just be rather than do where I better understand what it means to be me.

I can take a breath.

These pockets of being inspire the doing, but so often, we blow right through these in-between moments, either distracting ourselves or feeling guilty for merely existing.

I enjoy waiting — perhaps for an appointment at the city office, or for my number to be called at a sandwich shop, or for the train to arrive. I particularly enjoy sitting on the train during an off hour. I gaze out the window and my eyes track the shifting landscape, the buildings, the colors, the light.

Rather than watch a movie for entertainment, I’d prefer sitting in an open square, on a bench at the park, or on the corner of a busy street watching the world go by. I observe what people are wearing, how we’re interacting, what makes us laugh or scowl; I notice how we hold one another, or how we don’t. I laugh at kids being kids.

It’s rare that we give ourselves the gift of time without expectations.

I’m sitting in Mister Mint, a shoe repair shop in Koenji, a less-touristy pocket of Tokyo known for its vintage stores and style, about a forty-minute walk from my home in Nakano.

The shop is small. The waiting area is about five feet-by-five feet. I imagine the shop has been here for a long while, considering its central location.

The smells are rich and leathery, musky and artificial, and the colors of the room are deep blue and black amid a sea of brown. The man who’s helping me has round glasses, a clean face and curly black hair — the put-together look of someone who can make your shoes like new.

He smiles at my request, gives me small brown slippers and tells me to take a seat, speaking just enough English to match my just enough Japanese. I happily oblige. Nothing to do but sit, listen, and watch the world turn outside the glass door.

When we simply sit with ourselves, we peer into our own mind and heart and soul. Our thoughts, dreams and fears become the landscape outside the window, or the busy street corner, or the wind blowing through the garden.

Usually, these more abstract thoughts are squeezed into the cracks of our daily routine without the space to breathe, grow, or to be looked at clearly.

When we give ourselves some time to think without doing, however, we may contemplate why we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place. Why is everybody moving so fast? Why are we in pain? Why does it feel like a waste of time to sit and watch the world go by?

What does it mean to waste time, anyway?

I see it as doing things which obscure the fact that we’re alive on this miraculous rock for a limited number of years. I find that doing nothing but observing the world honors this fact, rather than diminishes it. So does doing work that matters to you.

Genuinely wasting time may be doing work that drains your spirit, or doing just to look or feel busy (which I’m guilty of just as much as anybody).

In our ultra-productive westernized world, doing nothing is considered wasting time. In that case, it’s good to waste some time every day.

I feel like I’m falling behind if I’m not working. I fear that if I spend time doing nothing, I won’t one day reach the life of my dreams. But the life of my dreams is nothing more than observing, existing, being at peace in the world without feeling that weight of expectations.

“What do I want,” says 20th-century philosopher Alan Watts in his talk, ​Trust the Universe​.

“The answer is I don’t know. When you don’t know what you want you’ve reached a state of desirelessness. Why don’t you know what you want? Two reasons. One is you have it. Two is you don’t know yourself because you never can. The godhead is never an object of its own knowledge just as a knife doesn’t cut itself, fire doesn’t burn itself, light doesn’t illumine itself, it’s always an endless mystery to itself. This I don’t know is the same thing as I love, I let go, I don’t try to force or control. It’s the same thing as humility.”

I am already there. I want to be free to just be, and I am free to just be — it’s a social construct that makes me believe I’m not. So what is there to do?

Swoosh swoosh swoosh — the universe sings in the sound of the brush against leather, then the low drum of a machine doing I don’t know what to my shoes. The Koenji train station is bustling outside the glass door. I listen to the train rattling by and the wind blowing softly. The streets are shadowed and the sky is blue.

It’s Sunday, the first chilly day of fall. A young man comes into the store to pick up his polished shoes. The bell jingles. The man’s pants are striped black and white and baggy, and he’s wearing a vintage dark silver soccer jersey.

Style is an important aspect of life in Japanese cities, and there’s no place like Koenji for a look into Japanese drip. It seems people are eager to break out their fall jackets and funky pants and well-shined shoes. Watching people come and go from the station is like a vintage fashion catalogue in motion.

It’s getting chillier, and that makes me happy. Maybe the miracle of life is in waiting, listening, sitting in a shoe store. Maybe it’s all here, there, everywhere, all the time. What do I want. Is it not this?

To observe the way the world works, the way the earth spins, feeling healthy and at peace, not feeling like I need to keep up and do more, but rather, doing because my soul is nourished by what I do.

I believe in hard work and making one’s way in the world. I believe we’re often going to have to do things we don’t want to do. We’ll need to sacrifice and suffer involuntarily and do what must be done without complaining. But I also think we’ve lost touch with what it means to just be.

See if you can relax. Listen. Sit and read a book for an hour, or do nothing for an afternoon without feeling angsty. We are great mysteries to others and ourselves, aren’t we.

Filling our time with more, instead of emptying so we may see. My soul ebbs and flows — sometimes I strive, and sometimes I feel the need to stop. But my curiosity never wanes.

I want to know why we’re on this rock, and what makes us who we are. I want to get all that I can out of life, living in a way that feeds my heart and soul. I want to live.

And while to me, that means experiencing the far-reaching corners of this earth, it also means sitting here in this shoe store with nothing to do, feeling content as I listen to the brush; feeling joy as I watch this colorful neighborhood of Tokyo bustle with life.

I want to feel that I’ve done enough, that I am enough, that this is enough, sitting in the store, waiting for my shoes to be repaired. Because it is. The man hands me back the polished shoes, and I laugh.

Kirei desu yo! (beautiful!) I say. I didn’t know what to expect — these boots were scraped to the bone. Now they look brand new. The man laughs, too.