I sat down on the chair by the window with the intention of doing nothing.
Almost immediately, this became a project.
I wondered how long I should do nothing for. Ten minutes seemed do able, but perhaps too short to have any impact? Twenty sounded more serious. I considered setting a timer, then realised that watching time pass was already giving the nothing a beginning, an end and an explicit goal.
I left the phone on the table and looked out the window.
There was not much happening. A parked car. A tree moving in the wind. A person walking past with a bag for life. After thirty seconds or so, I remembered something I needed to buy. Then I thought about making a coffee. Then I began mentally drafting a sentence about how difficult it is to do nothing, which in itself felt like cheating.
Seems we are really good at giving empty time a purpose!
Rest is supposed to restore us. Meditation should make us calmer. A walk should count towards our health. Even boredom is sometimes defended because it may improve creativity, helping activation of your default mode network.
I understand the appeal. Purpose makes time easier to protect. If doing nothing lowers stress or leads to better work, it can be placed on the ‘productive’ side of the day. We can explain why it does too.
But is a rest that must prove its value actually a rest?
I have often approached mindfulness in this spirit. I sit quietly, follow the breath and hope to become a little more calm. There is nothing wrong with that. Yet it can also mean bringing the same restless ambition into the silence: checking whether I am present enough, calm enough, doing the thing correctly.
The mind is capable of turning almost anything into a performance review.
By the window, I tried to abandon the attempt. I was no longer going to do nothing properly. I would simply stay idle in the chair for a while.
Thoughts still continued though. Some were practical, some anxious and some too dull to even remember. I didn’t become peaceful. I scratched my back, changed position multiple times and watched a bird land on the pavement before leaving almost immediately. The minutes just remained ordinary minutes.
Was this the point?
Doing nothing sounds dramatic only because so little time is allowed to remain undefined. In practice, it may look like staring out of a window, lying on the bed before getting up, or staying at the table after you’ve finished eating. No special atmosphere arrives. There is no visible achievement, and often no story to tell afterwards.
I think this is what can make it feel wasteful when the day already seems short. There is always something that could be answered, organised, watched or learned. The phone makes all of these available without even requiring us to stand up.
Yet a life in which every gap is claimed begins to feel like something is missing. One activity joins the next with no place for experience to settle. Even leisure and rest arrives full of content.
After a while, I stood up. I had not timed the idle sitting, so I cannot say whether it lasted eight minutes or fifteen. I did’t feel transformed. The shopping item returned to me, and I wrote it down. Then I made the coffee I had been thinking about.
The chair by the window was empty again…until the dog reclaimed it.
Nothing had come from the pause that I could measure, but equally for a few minutes, nothing had been asked of it either.
if you’d like a small companion for the week: seven small margins — a free printable with seven quiet invitations. no streaks, no pressure.
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