Why Doing Nothing Matters
I quit my job recently. I wanted to explore other opportunities, ideas and see what else is out there. I had the decision semi-planned: spend a few weeks of summer with friends and chill, and then travel together with my family until fall hits. So that meant a long summer stretched in front of me, good weather and hours of having nothing really to do… heaven or hell? Let’s go with heaven first.
Come my last day at work, I made the most the weeks ahead. Week day dinner parties, late nights, even later morning lie-ins. Travelling at will, being spontaneous, being able to not just say yes but mean it too… wow, this is great, I thought to myself. I spent my birthday evening celebrating this new hiatus in my life, replete with sunflowers, cake, sea and good friends. I needed this, I thought, mentally patting myself on my back. My travel visa for the end of summer was refused but I didn’t let that bog me down too much. I like spending time with myself, I thought. I’d figure something out.
The sun started to set on summer. My friends resumed work, the 9–5 regular timetable absorbing them once again. While they filed out one by one from the ‘summer team’ I had assembled, I was left to my own devices. Sure, I can manage that, I thought. I like spending time with myself, don’t I? I can work out, cook at leisure, oh and binge watch for days… what could I possibly be complaining about? Well who was I kidding, my plan of ‘que sera sera’ now seemed terrifying.
What the hell was I thinking? I was supposed to be on another continent now, enjoying time with my family… that was the plan. Not taking a seemingly endless vacation from life as I knew it. But well, tough love Sri. I didn’t get my visa and here I was, trying to figure out an alternate plan.
I tried making a routine for myself. Wake up at a semi-decent hour (between 8–9), bid adieu to my productive room mates gulping down breakfast and coffee and biking their way to work. I’d close the door behind them, make myself a cup of coffee and debate with myself if I should go out for a run. The lazy in me would protest: bad weather, leg cramps, arm cramps, cold, cough, lightheadedness. The sensible in me would shoot back: think about how you’ll feel when you get it done! Fitness, endorphins, good stuff… safe to say, they both had good arguments and it took a fair amount of time to decide who won. After this, I’d sometimes go out grocery shopping, then make myself a nice meal, shower, clean, and whine to my family about the inconvenience of their time zone. The time in between, I would spend passively watching something on Netflix, reading books, scrolling and posting on social media, blogging a fair bit and journaling. Come evening, I’d crave human contact. Good for me that my productive office-going room mates came home, made conversation with me while cooking dinner and then finally the day would draw to a close. (play on loop)
I’ve done this for a few weeks now. But you know what? I found that it wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. I berated myself a lot while doing this, beacuse come on, a lot of this daily ‘routine’ I had built, it was a colossal waste of time! I could be learning Danish in this time. Or enrolling in digital marketing courses. Or volunteering. Or doing something more respectable with my time, right? Yes, being productive is important. It gives us meaning, purpose, and channels our creativity. Learning, doing something, they’re important: there’s no question about it. But so is doing none of those things, or rather, doing those things at your own pace and in a way that makes sense to you.
Here’s my argument why. In these weeks that I’ve ‘wasted’ CV-wise, I’ve made time for all the things I did not when chasing ‘regular adult life’. I reflected as I blogged and journaled (because I had nothing else to do), I learnt things while watching shows and films on Netflix and reading books (the world of fiction is an enriching one), I paid intent attention to my surroundings when I took a run or went to the grocery store (I had no idea who my neighbours were before this or how many streets I had never discovered), I began to cherish the regular sounds of people around me on weekends or past 5 PM (being home alone for a period of time can make you do that), and I realised that a lot of the things I took for granted were things I should have been much more grateful for. And what’s more, I made time for someone I often don’t make time for: me.
My voluntary hiatus is now coming to an end. This is my last week of doing nothing. Next week, I will join the 9–5 band wagon. I don’t know if or how these weeks of doing nothing will impact me life-wise. But I hope that if nothing, I will take the learnings of my hiatus with me. I hope that I will learn to make (and take) time for what really matters in between achieving goals and doing productive and CV-worthy things. I hope that I will remember to slow down from time to time, check in with both myself and my loved ones, and from time to time, do nothing at all. Because I do think it matters much more than I ever gave it credit for.
