By Ozan Varol

Mother Nature is a great teacher. Trees don’t try to produce fruit year round in an absurd attempt to be more productive. They lie dormant through the fall and the winter, shedding their leaves and conserving resources. Without that period of dormancy, they couldn’t bloom in the spring.

Humans also have seasons. The artist Corita Kent, during one of her own dormant periods, would sit idle and watch a maple tree grow outside her window. “I feel that great new things are happening very quietly inside of me,” she said. “And I know these things have a way, like the maple tree, of finally bursting out in some form.”

Being idle isn’t the same thing as being lazy.

A vacuum isn’t something to be automatically filled.

As the saying goes, it’s the silence in between the notes that makes the music.

So if you’re in between projects or jobs—or even romantic relationships—resist the tendency to immediately fill the void with the next thing.

Great new things are happening quietly inside of you.

Give them the time they need to bloom in all their glory.