In defense of doing nothing in particular
Why boredom begets becoming
There is a particular kind of summer evening that I have lived many times, one that brought me so much peace, yet played with my mind like it was time wasted. After all the routine activities and chores of the day have been tackled and there is that gift of an hour or two when sleep is far away, that is my favorite time to be. My most common use of that time however has been about ruminating on what else I could get done, what I possibly could dream up and how I need to not “waste” it. And then I’d end up glancing at my dog….simply being a dog. Of course, he’d either be napping, or trying to, but I know for a fact he was not trying to be his most productive self.
That’s when I realized, I did not need to do something, anything with that time. I had the gift of time. And so I daydreamed, put on some music that made me sob alternatively out of nostalgia and euphoria and pet my dog way too hard until he got annoyed with me.
Every time I came upon such an evening, I found a version of doing nothing. Sometimes it was walking in the backyard without any music or podcast or book. Simply noticing, breathing and smiling the widest with pure gratitude. Laughing too hard when my dog turned upside down and rolled all over the grass with glee, panicking when he mistook a live baby rabbit for a squeaky toy and grimacing as he dug out my plants once again and rushed indoors with his muddy paws.
The world as we know it would like you to assign a dollar amount to every second you spend awake (and possibly even asleep). And while we enjoyed a brief respite as the Wellness era swooped in, we have now swung all the way to the other side. Productivity is now making the most of your “wellness” tools during any downtime. Have you put on your red light mask yet? Or done your 15-step skincare routine? Have you journaled or meditated or visualized today? Or simply scrolled away on social media and shrunk your prefrontal cortex again? The shame on either end of the productivity spectrum has remained the same.
Spacing out gets a bad reputation, but new research (or perhaps research that has more recently become mainstream) shows that this activity is what is precisely needed for consolidation of several tasks the brain performs. Research also goes as far as to say when the brain is unencumbered by the routine or productive tasks, it may finally be free to become its most powerful version, and who would not want that! The epiphany while staring at the hydrangeas in the yard, the sudden inspiration during a shower, the eureka moment while driving for hours. There are far too many instances of achievements while being in a state of doing nothing and that’s no mere coincidence.
I am not advocating for pure laziness, which is what happens when you take a good thing too far. I am not even talking about resting just to recharge. My experience with those evenings has been all about simply being and having nothing to show for it. Being present, hearing the passive sounds of the sleepy twilight, noticing the plants that curl up and sleep and just becoming a golden retriever for that period of time. And as the door opened and my husband peeped out to ask, “What are you doing?”, I could honestly say with a shrug “Nothing.”
In memory of my sweet boy, Bolt, who inspired me to be me.
A few things in this theme
