Member-only story
One of the blurbs on Jenny Odell’s book “How to Do Nothing” says:
“Who needs a book to know how to do nothing? Many of us, it turns out.”
The same is true for the rest. We live in a culture that praises work (and overworking), hustle, and activity. Resting is often perceived as a sign of weakness and laziness or as an optional activity we may participate in if we have some extra time and seriously nothing (and I mean NOTHING) better to do. Do we really need to learn how to rest? Absolutely!
“You’ll rest when you die,” many of us have been told.
Many of us feel guilty and unproductive when we don’t fill every second of the day with “productive” activities. We’ve been told that we have to constantly push to achieve more and get to someplace better. It’s a game we can’t win. The rest is seen as a luxury most of us simply cannot afford.
As a result, we’ve been burned out, stressed, we may have suffered health problems, we’ve been anxious, depressed, and perpetually exhausted. This is a major problem of our culture, entangled with capitalism, endless extraction of resources (including human resources), and generally unsustainable ways of work and living. This big cultural paradigm won’t vanish overnight…
