Saturday, September 3, 2011

The advantage of doing absolutely nothing

It seems to me that aside from health and happiness the thing people are most often short of is time. We make lists and check off each "to do", and we schedule personal dates with friends and family much like business meetings; busily tapping these appointments into our iPhone, Droid or Blackberry.

As the average work day / week encroaches into what was traditionally personal or family time, it seems like we have started to adopt behaviors from our work life for our personal lives. I see many friends killing themselves to make the most of their time out of the office; scheduling every minute to run errands, see friends, etc...

So here we are in the midst of a long holiday weekend in the US. The weather in Boston is spectacular - warm but not hot, sunny but with puffy white clouds and I'm enjoying doing absolutely nothing. My major achievement of the day has been devouring a hot fudge brownie sundae at PICCO - a local restaurant all of two blocks from my home.

Have you scheduled yourself into oblivion this weekend? Is your check list of errands so long that you'll need all three days to get through everything? I hope not because sometimes doing absolutely nothing ensures you'll appreciate the time most.

5 comments:

WranglerMan said...

An historian, E. P. Thompson, once wrote that due to industrialization, "people went from passing time to spending it."

Nothing better than sitting on a lawn in the summertime and watching the clouds roll by. Or just taking a walk. Nothing recharges me more!

Anonymous said...

Yep, been in oblivion since Thursday!

Well, we did do breakfast two days so far, dinner for our anniversary, and Not Just Snacks Indian food for lunch today.

We do have to eat.

Maybe grill some burgers and corn later. And I have to make some creme fraiche too!

Greg said...

We have absolutely no plans for the weekend and are winging it, doing things if we feel like it. Very nice.

Anonymous said...

The Italians say it best: "Dolce far niente"

Sweet to do nothing

saludos,
raulito

Liam said...

I've made no plans, but others have made plans for me (my daughter had 2 bat mitvahs yesterday and now a family cookout in CT this afternoon). Grrr. Thankfully, tomorrow is all mine, and I plan on spending the evening sitting by the firepit on my patio and drinking the last of the summer's white wine while reading a book.