{"id":4677,"date":"2015-12-30T04:52:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T10:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nosidebar.com\/?p=4677"},"modified":"2018-06-11T19:35:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T00:35:44","slug":"do-nothing-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nosidebar.com\/do-nothing-day\/","title":{"rendered":"How a \u201cDo Nothing\u201d Day Changed My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
Doing nothing. The mere thought gives you a sudden twitch, right?<\/p>\n
Me too, my friend, but despite the twitch, I would like to make a proposal: for one day out of each week, you do absolutely nothing. This doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t go anywhere, or just sit on your couch and stare at the wall. It means, simply, that you clear your calendar and make space for what could happen.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You remove any social obligations, you let projects sit idle, you turn off your notifications, and you simply take a day to just be.<\/p>\n
Ever since my first daughter was born, I felt the pull toward a \u201cdo nothing\u201d day. I went back to work part-time when she was only eleven weeks old, and when I spent time away from her, her demeanor and behavior was just different.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t as settled, and neither was I. I could tell she was a happier kid when I was able to spend one day just being with her. So when we were able to be together on my days off, I tried to make it a point to have one day where we didn\u2019t have a million places to be, if I could help it.<\/p>\n
No agenda, no rushing around<\/a>, no one else to please. Just me and her, together. Doing whatever we felt like doing, or getting into whatever adventure may come our way.<\/p>\n Recently I heard someone say if you want to see where your priorities really lie, look at two things: your calendar and your bank statement.<\/p>\n If you believe your priorities are what truly matters to you, look no further than those two places to confirm or deny your hunch.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s do an experiment. Take a look at your calendar, and take an inventory with me. How much of it is work related? How much of it is spent in social engagements? With family? Doing hobbies? Self improvement?<\/p>\n And how much white space do you see?<\/p>\n We have become a culture that is severely uncomfortable with white space<\/a>. We don\u2019t like being left alone with ourselves, and that’s because it’s not always fun.<\/p>\n We then have to face our true feelings, our negative emotions, our relational drama, and figure out what to do with it. It is much easier to simply turn on the TV, check our phones, and continue numbing.<\/p>\n We are terrified of silence, of nothing on the agenda\u2014who are we without these things<\/a> to hold us up, to give us significance?<\/p>\nThe \u201cDo Nothing\u201d Day<\/h2>\n