The Art of Doing Nothing
Have you ever felt the need to give explanation to yourself for doing nothing? I do feel that obligation weighing me down most of the times. It is like I have to run not walk , chase things and make every moment count - otherwise I feel that I am just wasting away the time that has given to me. All the productivity, mindfulness and wealth creation articles in the medium add more fuel to the already full blown fire inside me.
Ever since the lockdown began, I have been trying to adhere strictly to my routine. It was the only thing that I had some control over when everything else in the world turned chaotic. As the days turned into weeks, then months and now almost an year, this constant hustle made me a prisoner inside my own head. I was not even ready to catch my breath during the constant running. I stopped only when I was completely burned out.
Why do we feel we can relax only while we are on a vacation? When we are simply sitting at home doing nothing, why do we need to defend our idleness? By this time I have gone through my share of books and articles which preaches that it is during such idle periods that we get the energy for the next challenging tasks. Yet, I feel am wasting wasting my time.
After shifting to the new house, I had to take two days off from work because no WiFi. I was happy about taking a break as long as I had enough time to curl up with a book and churn out words to form new articles. I couldn't even think about a day without journaling, meditation , affirmation, yoga and the new writing challenge. Somehow I made myself stop worrying about ticking off the lists, just let myself embrace the idleness, ate whatever I felt like eating and slept as much as I can. I didn't even finish one book.
In between I watched Eat, Pray, Love. That is where I found this "La Dolce Far niente", the sweetness of doing nothing. It's been a tough year for all of us. May be instead of thinking and finalising the new year resolutions for 2021, we need a little downtime to do nothing, just letting the time pass by and enjoying the sweetness of idleness.
