Claiming the
Empty Spaces: The Importance of Idle Time in a Fast-Forward World
"What is this life if,
full of care, We have no time to stand and stare." —W. H. Davies
You’re just about to
leave for your dentist appointment, when you receive a phone call saying
the dentist has been called out on emergency and will have to reschedule
your appointment.
Congratulations! You are
the winner of one unexpected free hour! What will you do with your
winnings?
Answer your email?
Return to the project you were working on before you had to leave?
Pay bills?
Return phone calls?
Ever consider doing
nothing?
If you’re like many of us
today, the thought of doing absolutely nothing for an entire hour seems as
wasteful as throwing a week’s worth of groceries out with the garbage.
Indeed, free time with nothing to do can generate near panic among some of
us who are overloaded and time-starved.
"We seem to have a
complex about busyness in our culture," says Thomas Moore, author of Care
of the Soul. "Most of us do have some time each day to devote to simple
relaxation, but we convince ourselves that we don’t."
And yet, the harder we
push, the more we need to replenish ourselves. As Stephan Rechtschaffen,
author of Time shifting, says, "Each of us needs some time that is strictly
and entirely our own, and we should experience it daily."
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