It is a warm, sunny day in late June.

The quality of the midday light is so radiantly bright it's practically palpable making every outline crisper, every colour deeper.

Reeds stand in rows while glider bugs soundlessly zip along the surface of the water, their weightlessness and aerodynamic design making use of the water’s surface tension.

A whirring of tiny wings hover nearby – a bejeweled dragonfly pauses to survey its surroundings before it's off again, performing its airshow tactics of formidable loops and zigzags.

The silence underneath the chirping of the birds and lazy sounds of pond life induces a calm that is felt to the core of my bones.

As I glance out toward the pond I see something amid the floating duckweed and partially submerged logs of fallen trees: it is a tiny frog, half in, half out of the water.

So sweet. So tiny. So perfect.

Its head is a bright chlorophyll-green, matching the shade of the duckweed perfectly, while the rest of its body is a muddy light brown, the colour of dead leaves and wet wood.

I sit there, watching my little amphibian friend, observing its gentle breath and admiring its shiny skin.

The eyes never blink.

The frog never moves.

The only proof it's alive is the tiny rise and fall of its breath, just barely perceptible in its lower front body.

As I continue to observe I am awed by its ability to sit stock still for so long.

"Aren't you going to do something? You know, a 'ribbit ribbit', a hop, anything?" I say out loud to my little green friend, albeit quietly so as not to startle him from his sunning experience.

Us humans, I think to myself, we always feel we ought to be doing something.

Like me, right now... I'm loving sitting here by this pond but at the same I feel this ever-present underlying tug of 'duty', 'guilt' and sense of 'wasting precious time'. I can't even let myself enjoy this idyllic moment.

"I wish I were a frog." I say to my wee green friend.

"All you have to do is be a frog. You ARE the thing you 'ought' to be doing."

Then it hits me... the same is true for me.

I don't have to do anything else besides BE a human, sit in the sun (and observe a frog). Period.

With this shift in thought, a wonderful lightness fills my chest; I feel light as air. It's the feeling of freedom.

The relentless pressure to accomplish and 'justify' my existence by being productive is merely a construct of my mind; a conditioned way of seeing myself. It is a core belief I didn't even realize I had... but not anymore...

"Thanks for granting my wish" I say, as I wink to my reptilian friend. "It really is okay to sit and not do. In fact I am doing by not doing; because by not doing, I am being."

At this point, my little frog friend blinked... or maybe he winked back, as if to say "You got it, kid".