Busyness

I have a constant urge to do something meaningful with my time.

It's counterintuitive, but I've realized that doing nothing can be very productive as well.

We've all had our moments of clarity right before we sleep, or while we're in the shower.

These are moments of idleness; when we are not distracted by screens and our minds are at rest.

I used to say sleep is a waste of time. I was foolish.

I now think it’s the best investment you could make in yourself.

On this note, I’ll leave you with last paragraph of one of the most important essays of the 20th century.

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits.

But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all.

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

— Bertrand Russel, In Praise of Idleness

PS: Afternoon naps don’t count. That’s just laziness :)