The Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang once said that an afternoon spent doing nothing is an afternoon well spent.
My alter-ego, the one who is an energetic superwoman capable of balancing two careers and a household, shudders in horror at such a blatant waste of time. It doesn't bear thinking about: a whole afternoon, five precious hours of it, spent on gazing at the clouds, or on lying in the grass watching toddlers stick fingers into each others' nostrils, or with a good book. Instead, my alter-ego would devote the afternoon to spring-cleaning the wardrobe shelves (and throwing away all those pre-pregnancy clothes that will never fit anyway), cooking seven nutritious easy-to-defrost meals, writing chapter five of her third novel, polishing the dining table, playing "throw the CDs down the stairs" with her daughter, and/or ironing the work blouses.
Recently, I've had the rare luxury of having an afternoon to myself, with three eager babysitters competing for my baby's attention. Did I turn into my alter-ego and complete all the household chores one by one? I did not. Did I escape gratefully into my den to read or apply a facemask or stare empty-headed at the ceiling?
Sigh. it's what I wanted to do, honestly. It's just that, well, it seemed so decadent and wrong to devote the precious hours of freedom to. nothing.
I truly believe we have lost the fine art of doing nothing. Our lives are full of traps to ensure we fill our time. The devil makes works for idle hands? Bah! The devil actually makes idle unimportant work for hands that are too busy to notice the difference. Think of all the emails we feel obliged to respond to, all the newspapers we feel we should read to remain "current", all the web sites we visit out of habit. Do clothes really need to be ironed? What's wrong with eating takeaway or popcorn for dinner on a weekly basis? Do children have to be bathed every night? What's the point of applying make-up only to wipe it off again at the end of the day?
It's time to stop feeling guilty about walking out of bad movies, it's time to stop feeling guilty about giving books ten pages to grip you and putting them aside if they fail the test, and it's high time to start feeling guilty about all the time-fillers we clutch to in order to avoid doing - nothing.
Next time you're waiting at a supermarket checkout, resist the temptation to flick through all those magazines you wouldn't normally buy. When stopped at a red traffic light, be grateful for the pause. Grab every single opportunity to be out there and do nothing. Remember, it's an art. And it's far more difficult than you think.
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