The Art of Doing Nothing….

The Art of Doing Nothing….


Why wasting time and indulging in nothingness is the new skill to acquire this summer.

One of my favorite things to do in this summer heat is to gaze out of the window, daydream, and do nothing – nothing at all. Some may call it wasting time, but in the age of ‘busyness’, idleness is the way to be in fact, it’s the only way to give your mind some much-needed peace, and recharge your batteries, both at the same time.
Take a leaf out of the Italian way of life; La dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing). The idea here is that doing nothing is actually an activity in itself. For eg., did you know that doing nothing can develop your problem-solving ability, make you creative? Or, the fact that it can make you a solution-oriented person? Research says all these qualities are borne out of letting your thoughts wander randomly. In short, when your brain gets time for self-reflection, the quality of your life automatically improves.
The world over, whiling away time is actually becoming a movement as people realize the pointlessness of running on a treadmill of activity. It has depleted their strength to the extent that they can’t function like normal human beings anymore.

‘DISCONNECTED TIME’ AT WORK

New studies have shown that indulging in ours, even days, of nothingness, are a smarter way to live and work. Realizing the need to give people’s brains the much-needed vacuum, companies such as 3M, Pixar, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, have made ‘disconnected time’ a key aspect of their workplace. To be disconnected is possibly, the first step to an idle mind. In fact, such is its importance in today’s world that France has actually passed a law that came into effect this January, It gives citizens the “right to disconnect” after office hours, In short, they cannot be forced or asked to check official emails or respond to them after work hours.

THEN AND NOW

Earlier, Whiling away time was the rhetoric for not doing something useful with life. But in the age of 24X7 ‘connectedness’, even as we think, we are giving our mind a rest, our fingers are furiously working on smartphones or laptops while other people’s lives and comments occupy our headspace.  Add to it the fact that we love saying “I’m busy” to everyone.
A far apart, ‘busyness’ is as sort of self-serving indulgence we love to revel in. Experts worldwide have started warning about the ill effect of this addiction that creeps up silently. Recent studies have shown that our brains get a dopamine hit each time we experience something new. So every time we scroll through our Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp messages, we get a ‘high’.Idleness or ‘nothingness’ as a feeling cannot be easy to come by in such a scenario.






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