We all know how important it is to keep busy. Can you tell me exactly why it’s so important to be busy? I remember comments such as: As long as you’re keeping busy… and oh well, but at least it keeps me busy. As if something really bad would happen if we weren’t occupied at all times. Does the boogieman come and get you? Why is being busy such a good thing? A lot of people will confide to say it feels good to be busy. In our society, being busy translates to being important, being needed, wanted, appreciated, being successful. Action is a very positive word. If you are not busy, what are you? And more existentially: Who are you?
What would you rather be called: lazy or busy?
It’s not very fashionable to not do much. Imagine you were lazy. Where would your career be and how would you feel about yourself?
Being busy has a great advantage: you can hide behind your activity and justify almost anything with it – from relationship upsets and break ups to not doing your job well, to failing your business. From not being healthy to being too tired, for not being up for it to neglecting the really important things in life. It didn’t work out, I was too busy, you can’t do it all at once, you know there is only one of me, the day has only 24hours, sorry but I was too busy, you got to prioritise and there’s too much to do. Now if you were not busy…you may have the space in your head to think about your friend’s birthday and how to make him/her really happy… If you were not so busy, you may spend some wonderful time with your family or someone who will make you start one… You may think about the things you really wanted to do rather than the endless list of things you ought to do… If only I was not so busy!
If I was lazy, surely I couldn’t complain about being where I am. Success requires action. If I was lazy, I would get nowhere. Forget achievement, wouldn’t I just hang in the air? It’s hard to actually cope with emptiness. We all know the feeling of emptiness and most people I have seen are trying to avoid it at all cost. Even at the cost of their own health and happiness. Emptiness is a space that contains nothing and all. It feels like a hole but if you look through, it’s in that hole that you will find the nourishing ground for all that you need. When we glide into lazy mode…think lazy summer day, in the hammock looking at the sea…
It suddenly becomes very easy not to do anything at all. Do you know the feeling when looking at the sea and changing to look at the tree is more than enough action? Holiday is a lazy time that is accepted by everyone. I could speak about taking little holidays more often. But what I want to talk about is the importance of being lazy and the importance of seeing laziness for what it can be. Laziness often comes with a complementary portion of guilt. You are not meant to be lazy. Be busy, be efficient, do something! I want to challenge this belief. As my father says: laziness is a form of intelligence. Why would you do more than you need to? Why spend energy on useless activity? It’s interesting my Dad came up with this, he works too much. However, he has become a master of doing nothing on weekends. He practises laziness with great discipline.
When you feel like doing nothing, the best thing you can do is exactly that. At some point, we are satisfied and move on. So after a lazy period, you will want to do something. When we are tired, sleeping is the best thing to do, even though the coffee industry will try to tell us differently of course. We won’t sleep forever. We do actually wake up and want to get out of bed. Except when we were restricted for a while and need to catch up with sleep. I had the privilege to live in my own rhythm for 3 years, getting up when I wanted and sleeping when I wanted and guess what: I did actually want to get up and I did want to sleep. I like routine and I like doing things and I like rest. When we have a choice and we have a good relationship with ourselves, we usually choose what’s best for us.
So why not be lazy for a while? Why not openly do nothing? Take it easy at work, take it easy at home… get messy for a bit. Let’s not be disciplined self-motivated super-human goal achievers. For one week, let’s just live as it is… Enjoy a lemonade, enjoy the sun or the rain, enjoy the mess and indulging in your thoughts and visions. Imagine nothing was really important.
It’s magic!
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