The Secret Power of Doing Nothing
Since when did it become the objective in life to do as much as possible? 
I thought that the point of technology was to make life easier and give us a better quality of life. Instead it has become a set of virtual handcuffs we put on ourselves.
I can’t sit in Starbucks nowadays without somebody whipping out their crackberry or iPhone to check their messages. My neighbour takes his children out to play every day but as he walks past my house with them I can see his has his iPod on. Great, now he can multitask quality time with his kids as well as listening to his favourite tunes.
When I was young I used to complain to my mother that I was bored. It surely can’t happen nowadays. It is almost an arrestable offence to do nothing. Do you think you would be able to muster up the energy to sit down somewhere with no distractions? Sit and watch the world go by. Watch children playing or the cars drive by?
I challenge you do to that this week. Make sure you turn the phone off. I bet it is one of the hardest things you will have done in some time.
Paul Browning
Tag:Boredom
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10 Comments
Doing nothing, then you can come up with everything:), just relax
Sometimes we need leave things behind for a while. Let it be.
Doing nothing? For an entire week?!? Not going to happen. If I went an hour without checking my ‘crackberry’ as you call it, the entire world would implode. LOL
I know what you mean. I am looking at my schedule, and I don’t have time to not do anything 🙂
I would welcome the challenge. I dream of the day that I can throw my phone away and ‘check out’?.
This post hits the nail on the head. We have all become too connected. Technology is a blessing and a curse.
I admit that I am a little addicted to my iPhone. I don’t think I could ever leave the house without it. That said, I also wish sometimes that I didn’t have to instantly respond to emails and messages. Because people know that I have an iPhone, they expect me to be on-call every minute. I’d like to spend a little time doing nothing.
Our technology keeps us connected, but it can also run our lives. To me, it is a question of where to draw the line between business time and free time.
OK last comment of the afternoon! I?m taking the day off to relax and unwind; skimming through some of these older blog posts that I hadn?t read before, and what happened? Someone sent me an email message about a task I need to complete ? NEXT WEEK. My Blackberry was turned on, and buzzed when the message arrived. Did I ignore it? NO. Did I tell myself to respond tomorrow? YES ? but then I just had to whip off a reply explaining that the task would be done next week as scheduled. Conditioned response! Can?t ignore the electronic summons. Sheesh. The Blackberry is now turned off, and the computer will be shut down soon. Freedom for today 🙂
Update. It was great having that break. I got back to work yesterday and felt so much more energy after that one day off. Must find a way to do nothing a little more often!