The Art Of Doing Nothing
Röthenbach im Emmental, Switzerland — November 2025
It all begins with doing nothing. To become someone new.
How do you feel late at night when you’re finally alone, when the world quiets, the white noise hums softly, and there is nothing left to perform for?
After a long day, sometimes the only presence that feels right is silence. Or maybe a small furry companion resting nearby, reminding us why animals so easily become our emotional anchors. We’ve entered a time in humanity where healing has become unavoidable, healing generational trauma, past mistakes, bruised egos, old resentments. A time where we are learning how to quiet what no longer serves us, so we can welcome what comes next.
On November 24, 2025, I found myself in Zurich, Switzerland, a reality that once felt impossibly distant from my life in Puerto Rico and the United States. Before the journey, I remember sitting on the steps outside my best friend Nyasha Reyes’ childhood home, speaking with certainty into the unknown: We will make it there. We will be okay. And somehow, despite uncertainty and constraint, it happened.
When we arrived, Zurich felt grey and rain-soaked. People moved gently, simply existing. As someone shaped by New York City’s urgency, I wasn’t used to being the outsider, the visitor, the one being observed. It was humbling. After hours of transit, we arrived in Röthenbach im Emmental, a quiet town tucked deep into the Swiss countryside. The language barrier was real. The stares were curious. And yet, we were safe.
Then something shifted.
The silence.
Not the kind of silence filled with hums and distractions but real silence. A silence that settles into the body. One you can feel in your breath, your thoughts, your aura. There was no urge to reach for my phone. No need to fill the space. I slept deeply. I dreamed vividly. I journaled. I did nothing.
And in doing nothing, everything changed.
The next morning felt like a reset. Each movement felt intentional. Each thought arrived gently. We wandered through Thun, saw the Alps, and stumbled into a small café called ‘Tahanan’ a Filipino-owned space serving empanadas. As a Puerto Rican, thousands of miles from home, that moment of familiarity felt written. Sacred. Human.
That trip taught me something simple but profound: it is okay to step away from the noise. To sit with yourself long enough to hear what’s been waiting underneath. Clarity doesn’t arrive through force it arrives through stillness.
Practicing The Art of Doing Nothing is not about absence.
It’s about presence.
And sometimes, that is the most luxurious thing of all.
