The Subtle Art of Doing Nothing

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A question first: if you are asked to spend 15 minutes being alone with your thoughts, could you handle it? Or would you rather give yourself some electric shocks?

Answer it to yourself now.

Then, keep reading, and you will get why I asked it.

When I was a little kid, I often felt lazy at the weekends. My father was in the garden, constantly keeping himself busy.

He usually wanted me to help him with some of the stuff that kept him busy. I'm not gonna lie; I hated it. Instead, I wanted to do nothing but stay in my room, watch TV, play games or read my favorite car magazines.

So after doing some work with him, I rushed back to my room and did exactly what I wanted. It felt like breaking free from the obligation of constantly being busy. Of course, I often felt the guilt of not being useful.

This mentality stayed with me for many years. Whenever someone asked me about my weekend, I could usually tell them a handful of things that kept me busy. I told them to show the illusion of being useful despite my inner desire to do nothing but enjoy the time I could dedicate to myself.

However, today's society does not carry this mindset around.

My homeland, Hungary, experienced forty years of communism. During the last decade of this era, in the 1980s, our society had its own characteristics.

It meant that people always tended to be busy with work, even on the weekends. They went with the family to their weekend houses on Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings to do what?! Exactly, some more work!

Their weekend houses did not serve the purpose of leisure but another round of work after their 5-day workweek. My family wasn't different either.

As I was born in the 90s, I didn't experience this. However, my mom and older siblings told me stories that resonated with these social characteristics.

Even though I was absent from that phenomenon, I got a glimpse of that during my early years from a different angle.

Oliver Burkeman formulated this phenomenon so accurately in his book "Four Thousand Weeks":

„Nothing is more alien to the present age than idleness,” writes the philosopher John Gray. He adds: “How can there be play in a time when nothing has meaning unless it leads to something else?”

When was the last time you were doing absolutely nothing?

Like going for a walk with no destination. Or lying on the couch and listening to your favorite music.

Shockingly, We Don't Really Like Doing Nothing

In our fast-paced world, the vast majority of things we do always have a sense of purpose. We spend our free time cleaning our homes to avoid living in a dirty environment. We do sports to keep ourselves in good shape and stay healthy. We read books to gain knowledge that we can apply to our daily life.

And this is fine. In fact, these are things we should do.

However, so often, we get addicted to doing things that have some purpose or end goal. And during the time we spend doing something with no specific aim, we tend to get distracted by all the other things that we think should do to "check some items" from our to-do list.

Walking with no destination or getting together with our friends & family: great examples of activities that are not derived from their ultimate aim.

There is no end goal for these. These are purely part of our pastime for the enjoyment they provide.

But what about actually doing nothing? Like being with ourselves and thinking, for instance.

People in our times have worrisome challenges with it.

A 2014 study by Wilson et al. shows a great example of this sad phenomenon.

Their experiment asked the participants to hang around for 6-15 minutes in a room alone with nothing to do but think.

What happened was actually shocking.

No, literally, it was shocking for the participants as they could not keep it together for those 15 minutes. They instead administered electric shocks to themselves than be left alone with their thoughts.

The study proves that most people preferred doing something negative rather than nothing at all. Moments that caused them to suffer were more 'enjoyable' than enjoying the art of doing absolutely nothing but thinking.

What should we learn from this?

Our fast-paced life has many obligations that we need. However, we should dedicate time steering back to the natural angles of life - instead of purely living in our own artificially created living conditions.

The "addiction to impulses and busyness" keeps us from experiencing "deep time" when we enjoy our present time more in-depth and feel that time slows down.

Meditation, sitting on the top of a hill and watching the view, or even just being with our thoughts are examples of those "deep time" moments.

Why Is It So Hard To Do Nothing?

That addiction to impulses is just as crap as what drug addicts experience. I'm sure you also have those moments when you are not engaged in something for a minute but still feel the urge to check your emails, the news, or social media.

We also call that dopamine addiction.

I can also admit: I am a recovering dopamine addict. And there's a great recent example of that.

When I was recently flying to Spain, I was reading and brainstorming for future articles on this blog. But for a few minutes, I decided to do nothing but stare out the window and let myself in the flow of thoughts.

And then the dopamine addiction "entered the room." I felt the urge to check all my emails. I wanted to know what was going on there - even if I checked them minutes before we took off.

I recognized the context of this behavior, and since there was no internet connection, I could - luckily - do nothing with it. So I could discipline myself by going back to the state of flow.

Take a minute and examine your daily life. How often do you obey your dopamine addiction? How much time can you actually spend without any artificial stimulation to your mind?

There are also some useful and fun things to do against this dopamine addiction & also connected to doing nothing:

• Spend a full day without your phone - this is a tough one. Go out of your home and leave it there. Or if you need it to call someone in case of emergency, buy a "dumb phone" for €10 and use that.

• Go for a long walk - as mentioned a couple of times above. Just start wandering around your neighborhood, explore new spots, and enjoy the city's sound.

• Take a notebook and start doodling or writing down your thoughts - I can guess that only a few of you do this regularly, but it also helps to clear your mind from all the thoughts that are buzzing you daily.

• Start a new hobby that you've been delaying for a while - and do it for the sense of pastime, not perfection and performance. It's more than okay to suck at your hobby. You just have to enjoy it.

Another Reason We Don't Like Doing Things Without A Purpose

According to philosopher Kieran Setiya, we distinguish the telic and atelic activities.

Telic activities are all those things we do for the sake of the "telos" - the Greek expression for the ultimate purpose.

As mentioned above, we work to earn money and progress in our careers. Thus, to get a sense of fulfillment. Workouts are there for us to stay healthy, look great and attract the opposite sex. And reading is in our life to broaden our knowledge and sense our intellectual value.

These all have their purpose in our life.

In the meantime, there are the atelic activities. There is no end goal or desire for accomplishment with those. Doing absolutely nothing is an atelic activity. Being with our friends & family is also. As well as listening to music.

We do all these things for the enjoyable moment itself. Not to achieve a particular end with those.

And no, this is not the place to justify your social media scrolls - that's not part of it, as you do those things to satisfy your dopamine addiction or to get informed. It's not atelic. 

We need to embrace these atelic activities. Doing absolutely nothing or doing things with no exact purpose shall be as much a part of our life as all the things we commit to for a greater aim.

Life is too short, and our living time is too limited to always fight for the "telos." Our life should not be all about being heroic for an ultimate goal.

So, after reading this week's piece, go and commit to some short period of time this week to train yourself and enjoy the subtle art of doing nothing.

Believe me; it will contribute massively to your life to deepen the time you spend alive.

Because in the end, on your deathbed, you won't solely think about the times when you were committed to things that supported an ultimate aim. And you won't regret the times you spent doing nothing - instead, the ones you spent on stupid stuff like social media.

You will regret not giving yourself more time to enjoy the natural beauty of living on this beautiful planet Earth.

Máté - The Mindful Guerilla

💡 My Weekly Recommendations 💡

Stuff I Recommend You This Week

• Morgan Housel wrote a great piece with a few stories that teach you great value about life.

• Yes Theory went to Ghana to explore their culture of funeral celebrations - you remember the "coffin dance", right? These Ghanaian happy funerals bring a new perspective to death, so I recommend you watch this video.

• Do you believe that the Bermuda Triangle is some mysterious spot on Earth with supernatural phenomena? Then watch this video from Johnny Harris to get the answers on what's happening there.

Newsletters I Read Every Week

• Young Money - Jack writes inspirational & insightful posts on finance, career, and life. I learned a lot from his work, which was also a great motivation for me to start my own newsletter. 10/10 recommended!

• International Intrigue - A valuable newsletter on diplomacy & geopolitics delivered every weekday. Rather read this than all those shitty clickbait articles on mainstream media.

• Exec Sum - A daily newsletter on the major stories from the financial world. It's fun, entertaining, and informative. Better than those finance outlets with shitloads of ads.

• Snail Mail by Slow Growth - a weekly newsletter delivered every Monday by Matt D'Avella's team with great motivational content on productivity. It's not the usual productivity bullshit that you find everywhere else.

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