The Value of Doing Nothing

BY SOFO ARCHON

I was on my daily evening walk yesterday when I noticed a little bird resting on a rock that was half-submerged in the stream beside me.

It was all alone, sitting quietly, barely moving.

I stopped for a while to observe it.

It looked absolutely calm and content, as if nothing was missing from its life.

I wondered, “How many of us need to be more like this little bird?”

Our culture, disconnected from the rhythms of nature, has no respect for idleness or stillness. It values and rewards activity, busyness, productivity. Those who are not busy or productive are looked down upon and labeled lazy or unworthy.

From the moment we are sent to school (or even earlier, for some of us), we are taught that it’s bad to do nothing. Don’t sit around—do your homework, attend the piano lesson, join the soccer team. Feeling content with who you are, savoring the present moment, is for losers—to win at life, to become successful, we must always strive for something more, whether that’s getting better grades or advancing our careers.

After years of social conditioning, many of us have internalized this belief, judging ourselves whenever we do nothing.

Here’s an example: a dear friend told me that lately she spends little of her time working and most of it traveling the world. Although she enjoys it immensely, she often catches herself feeling guilty about “doing nothing,” and she has to consciously remind herself that there is actually nothing wrong with, as she put it, “just existing.”

But unlike my friend, most of us push ourselves to do more than we want in order to fit the image of the “productive” person and, in turn, feel valued and accepted by society. And we don’t just do more than we want—we do more of what we never even liked doing in the first place. (How many people do you know who genuinely enjoy their work? I bet there aren’t that many.)

No matter how much we have, we always want more: more money, more status, more material possessions. Look at billionaires—even they are chasing money and power! We are all—poor, rich, or anywhere in between—running after the horizon, never stopping for a moment to ask ourselves whether it is actually reachable.

Due to this chronic busyness, we naturally end up feeling miserable and exhausted. We overtax our nervous system, we neglect rest, play, as well as our relationships and other vital aspects of a meaningful, happy, and healthy life.

The problem is that even those who understand this are often forced to remain perpetually busy. The obvious reason is that, in our economic system, most people have to work, work, and work, even when their jobs make them unhappy. Otherwise, they cannot earn enough money to provide for themselves and their families. In other words, this system tends to leave us with only two choices: either work ourselves to exhaustion or end up on the streets.

But is this how we were meant to live? After centuries of incredible scientific and technological progress, is this really the best that we can do?

Watching the dramatic increase in technological efficiency, many twentieth-century economists were convinced that by now people would have so much leisure time they wouldn’t know what to do with it. And yet here we are, working more than at any other time in human history!

Sometimes I ponder that if an alien species were to observe us, they would be scratching their heads trying to understand what is wrong with us. We live on an abundant planet, possessing the scientific knowledge and technical means to provide everyone with the resources needed to live joyful and healthy lives. And yet we maintain an obsolete economic system, working like slaves just to earn breadcrumbs, and waiting impatiently for the day we retire so that we can finally live as we want!

The good news is that we don’t have to live like this. As the little bird reminded me, another way of living is available to us: a way in which activity is balanced by rest; a way in which work is not more valuable than play; a way in which we can be content with what we have—right here, right now.

This is the way of nature, and we can return to it whenever we choose.