The Art of Doing Nothing
Stillness is harder than it looks
As a child, my go-to phrase was, “what are we going to do today?” My mom hated it.
“Nothing,” she would tell me weekend after weekend.
“I’m bored,” I often announced despite having a house full of toys and activities to keep me occupied. My parents met my declaration of boredom with a guilt-inducing lecture on the importance of being grateful that I have toys and things to do at home. You see, back in their day, they didn’t have time to be bored because they were trying to make money for their family, or escape war, and in the few moments of “fun” they would play outside with sticks and sand.
I would sit in my guilt and try to imagine what that was like, but not without a little adolescent angst which almost always included a few loud sighs and a mutter of “it’s not fair” under my breath.
That hatred of doing nothing followed me to adulthood.
I can’t sit still. I pick up my phone 72 times per day, according to my screen time app. That’s about six times per hour that I’m awake. At least once every ten minutes, I feel a subconscious pull to reach for it. Even when I delete all of my apps for a self-prescribed “digital detox,” I find myself reaching for something to scroll through. I hear phantom pings for apps that I…
