View Full Version : When you feel like doing nothing?
Gardenarian
2-7-14, 1:40pm
The past couple of days I just have felt like doing nothing.
My daughter has a bad cold. I'm still recovering from foot surgery, I can only walk short distances and can't do my favorite activities - hiking, gardening, yoga.
It's also raining out, which is really nice. I would probably be walking more but my dogs don't like the rain.
I have some things I should do but nothing very pressing.
I feel completely uninspired to write. I was really enthusiastic about a story I'm writing - I still feel it's going to work out well - but I have no desire to write at the moment.
I want to lie in bed and read, and that's about all.
This is really a weird feeling. I'm not unhappy, but feel slothful and guilty. I also feel like it's unhealthy.
Do you ever feel like this?
Should I just go with the feeling or force myself to get busy?
I've been reading 'Walden' (along with a lot of other things) and Thoreau spends a lot of time just sitting on his doorstep.
Sitting and Staring in to Space are perfectly reasonable activities. Your body and your mind are doing things, just not the active things you think you're supposed to be doing.
It sounds like a perfectly reasonable stretch of ruminating and recuperating to me. Give it a week and see if it goes away on its own.
Yep, perfectly normal and acceptable to do very little. Sometimes you just need to take it easy. Life isn't a race. Where are we racing to anyhow? I'm pretty lazy, but overall I do enough stuff in my life.
Usually I pay attention to what my body wants. I try to keep in touch with my gut on whether I am avoiding something for a bad reason, and need to force myself to do it, or if I truly should not do whatever it is.
As long as you are happy and content doing little, just go with it. Eventually you'll feel recharged and want to do more again.
Sounds as though your body is saying that it needs a rest period so go along and see what happens.
I've never been infected by the Protestant work ethic, thank heavens. Enjoy your down time.
onlinemoniker
2-7-14, 3:43pm
The only thing I would say you "should" do is to take some of this down time and be grateful that you live a life where you can enjoy leisure time in any way you like. Just think how your life as a woman would have been even if you'd lived 100 years ago. Stop feeling guilty. It's not worth it. Enjoy your life. It's not a competition. I'm planning on spending the entire weekend reading books, walking and cooking. I am so excited!
That's the perfect analogy. You are Recharging! Enjoy :)
Sad Eyed Lady
2-7-14, 5:14pm
What is the Buddhist saying (could be a pun for all I know)? "Don't just do something. Sit there!"
My entire day yesterday was exactly as you described, and it happens to me every couple of weeks, luckily on one of my days off. I had all sorts of things on my agenda, but basically spent the whole day reading, napping, eating, napping some more, staring out the window while in bed underneath all of my comforters, on and on all day. The only thing I really accomplished was I started watching "Breaking Bad" and made myself stop before I pulled an all-nighter. And yes, I felt slightly guilty for being so slothful but decided to tell myself I was honoring what my body and psyche needed on that day.
Enjoy it and don't be too hard on yourself. This winter has been so rough....
Teacher Terry
2-7-14, 7:49pm
I think you need to listen to your body and rest & be lazy when it tells you too. When I was working f.t. I would sometimes feel that way on the weekend & if I relaxed I felt way better on Monday then if I insisted on being productive.
Blackdog Lin
2-7-14, 9:25pm
Yeah, but it's been going on for.....weeks! The winter doldrums have definitely hit! I understand where you're coming from.
Bare minimum, that's been my work-de-jour for weeks. Okay, so I don't wanna get outside, but jeesh, there's plenty of cleaning inside I could be doing. In the warmth. In the house. Not just cleaning, I could be organizing, I could be decluttering, I could be.....something besides the only thing I feel like doing: reading (sometimes a good book, sometimes just on the internet) and a cup of hot tea. February has got me in her grips.
My suggestion: let's just give in till March. Enjoy our sloth, read more books, and then in March we'll get back to normal life. We'll do constructive things then. Okay?
Gardenarian, Its good to take time to read a book and relax. Walden is a good book. Why is it people feel that they have to keep busy, multi task all the time? Its good for you to relax your mind and let your body heal. Enjoy your quiet time and don't feel guilty.
fidgiegirl
2-7-14, 10:01pm
I've been in the same mode for weeks. Interestingly I'm just starting to feel better - I think it's the longer days. It's hard to slooooooow down in our culture of human "doings." Hang in there, heal well, and here's to brighter days ahead.
I do this every couple of weeks. I have a very strong work ethic, but when I hit a wall, I hit a wall. I love sleeping late, reading, pretty much being a veg all day in bed, listening to the radio.
Fallow time... So necessary.
It's normal unless you are still feeling this way in April or May. I am doing what I call 'slow living' this time of year. I have bursts of energy here and there but am pretty much in 'make it through winter' mode for a few more weeks. More daylight hours and daily walks keep me even keeled.
Red Fox, I like that term, "Fallow Time" All winter long I've been toying with the idea of writing a song about that very idea, basically the phase of hibernation, resting, following natures rhythms...but I have been too lazy to actually start writing it!
I'm a big believer in doing nothing. Most of the world's problems have been caused by people doing something.;)
fidgiegirl
2-8-14, 10:08am
Red Fox, I like that term, "Fallow Time" All winter long I've been toying with the idea of writing a song about that very idea, basically the phase of hibernation, resting, following natures rhythms...but I have been too lazy to actually start writing it!
The irony! :laff:
Sometimes I just yearn for do nothing time. I think I am boarderline OCD, so there is always something to do or something that should be done...
I fantasize about just sleeping in or spending all afternoon curled up on the couch by the fire reading a novel or mystery.
But I can't. I think is the reason that I have been drawn to "simple living". I have filled my life with so many "have to's" that I don't leave any time for true relaxation. Something I am very aware of and working on. Last year I worked
about 650 hours of overtime -- learning a new position and covering for others, not this year!
One of my favorite summer evening things to do is sit on the back deck off our bedroom and read with a lemonade. Last year I did it once. Yep, just once.
Gardenarian
2-10-14, 12:19pm
Yes, I was asking for permission to take time off. Thanks! I enjoyed my lazy day.
I am apparently descended from some strong Puritan stock.
What's crazy is I often fill my days with busy work and puttering, with not a lot to show for it - might as well go read a book!
It would clearly be better for my peace of mind (and the state of my house) to make a decision - to choose a job and get it done, or just decide that I'm taking a day off. This is something for me to really work on.
ApatheticNoMore
2-10-14, 2:11pm
What's crazy is I often fill my days with busy work and puttering, with not a lot to show for it - might as well go read a book!
yes
"Grasshopper is (as we all start out to be) an independent individual, born with natural intellect, curiosity, and creative skills. He just never deadened himself.
Lazy? Hardly. He's the most ardent of doers. What he does, he does from joy. From curiosity. From a sense of adventure. Yeah, Grasshopper sometimes sits for days on end, contemplating blades of grass and translating the language of buzzing bees into the tongue of the blooming flower.
It looks as if he's doing nothing. But that sort of "nothing" is the great something (the great Paying Attention) from which most interesting concepts arise"
http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe060615.html
It would clearly be better for my peace of mind (and the state of my house) to make a decision - to choose a job and get it done, or just decide that I'm taking a day off. This is something for me to really work on.
If you think you have to make a decision, it's a pretty good clue your still in "do nothing" mode IMHO. Because I think if you were really in the place where you wanted to "do something" again, you'd feel the natural urge to do so! NOT GUILT. Just a wanting to do something, get something done.
Me? Ok obviously my work schedule doesn't allow much doing nothing. Life for most people in this socieity is not structured so there is a lot of do nothing time - and that's just the cold hard truth. I often don't even save up much vacation time, as I'm taking off days here and there (yes out of the about two weeks a year I get. Which is actually of course incredibly common for what Americans get in vacation time). But there are weekends. Some weekend days I do something, I socialize, etc.. Some I do basically nothing. I go get coffee and pastry, I go to the park across from that. I lie on the bench or on the grass in the park watching the sky or the tree branches above, I get asked "if I'm ok", yes I'm ok (seldom better really!), no I'm not even homelesss. I go to a natural place, I watch, watch, watch nature. A heir to Thoreau? Now that would be a compliment :)
I often think of the Alabama song:
"I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh, I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But, I'm in a hurry and don't know why
Don't know why
I have to drive so fast
My car has nothing to prove
It's not new, but it'll do 0-60 in 5.2, oh
I'm in a hurry to get things done ..."
Gardenarian
2-10-14, 2:19pm
"If you think you have to make a decision, it's a pretty good clue your still in "do nothing" mode IMHO. Because I think if you were really in the place where you wanted to "do something" again, you'd feel the natural urge to do so! NOT GUILT. Just a wanting to do something, get something done."
Not always. I often have urges to do something but I'm not sure what, and I fritter away my time. Better to choose a project that actually needs doing (that mending pile...) and get on with it.
Then, I can slack off with impunity.
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