Christmas Eve With Winnie the Pooh

   It's Christmas Eve morning.  While the rest of the family is getting ready to go to a large gathering later today, I am planning to stay at home and avoid all of the childhood germs that could be accompanying the myriad of young children that will be there.  Strange how I need to become more of a germaphobe when the first 56 years of my life I was quite the opposite.
   I am five days away from the next round of chemotherapy.  While I feel as though I am slowly gaining strength from that first experience two weeks ago, I still also feel lethargic and uninterested in investing energy in much of anything.  I am told that I will once again have energy.  I am told that I will like coffee someday again.  I am told that I will be able to go backpacking again.  Right now all of that is hard to imagine.  But for the time I am in I had better learn how to slow down and just get well.  What I think is more accurate is that I need to learn how to gain value out of doing nothing.  Winnie the Pooh once said, "Never underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." 
   There is always danger in quoting the words of a fictional character.  Don't get me started with such an argument.  I understand the pitfalls of seeking wisdom from cartoon characters and stuffed animals.  But I find challenge in this quote.  I am wired to perform, to do, to act, to measure up.  Perhaps now is the time to sit down, shut up, and learn what needs to be learned.  Maybe we could all stand doing a little bit of nothing every so often.