The Art Of Doing Nothing

Why is it that we feel it necessary to use an apologetic tone when stating, “I have done nothing all day?”
When quietly doing something or meditating, often in response to the question, “What are you doing?” we will reply “nothing,” rather than explain exactly what we are doing.

It is time we elevated doing nothing to an art form. It is very difficult to do nothing, and few of us achieve a high consistent standard. Those who can are apologetic about it.

How can one learn to do nothing? Meditating is hard enough.

Perhaps it should be taught in schools?

Imagine if doing nothing were a major subject, with the ultimate level a university degree. One would have to qualify with this degree to collect unemployment insurance. The taxpaying population would be considerably comforted to know that unemployment insurance was being paid to well-qualified people.

This would give a whole new meaning to the phrase “He will amount to nothing.”

One can almost hear a proud parent exclaiming, “My son graduated in nothing.”

A conversation between a man and his wife might go like this:

“What are you doing dear?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s great, keep it up, I might join you later, after I finish washing the dishes.”

Doing nothing would become fashionable and we would all participate. It would become increasingly difficult for drug cartels to sell their product to a population high on doing nothing.

Headlines in the daily papers might proudly exclaim, “Nothing happened today.” Indeed, the media would have to take a different approach, perhaps, to what constitutes important news.

Mourners at a funeral would fondly smile and nod agreeably when hearing in the eulogy the words, “He did nothing all his life.”

The time would come when we would realize that nothing matters.

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