Don't Waste Your Idleness

In the self development community there are those who will derisively condemn idleness as the enemy to your success and development. Always grind, always work - or you will be doomed to a life of mediocrity. The opposite is true. Grinding every day like a machine, will turn you into one. And machines do not innovate; they only do what they are told to. Idle time is in fact the essential element to which self actualization is a byproduct.

Consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; the popular psychological theory which lists basic needs for survival first, and needs for feeling respected and achieving goals later. Before we can deeply consider our need to become better versions of ourselves, we have to meet our needs for things like food and shelter. Until then, our primary concern will likely be to fill our bellies.

We could consider the same topic from an economic perspective. Nobody could have a dream to grow up and be a movie star, before movies were invented. Also, who would watch their movies if they were always working to eat? Being entertained only becomes a concern when a great many of our basic needs have already been met. Only in developed economies do we have the luxury of creating a myriad of jobs which have very little connection to being clothed, fed, and sheltered.

Though the inequality between the educated and uneducated classes has decreased in the modern age (most of us can read even if we're poor), it has always been the case that those who have the privilege of free time are able to pursue self-actualization whereas those who are bound by hunger and desperation have very little time to do much besides work. Some say that Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, and I would agree in general with the sentiment but not the fact of the matter. It is not merely idleness which ruins you. It is wasted idleness which can.

Consider how you use your free time. Do you let yourself be free at all? Many of us (self included) who become accustomed to a labor mentality, can hardly break away from it whether we are working or not. And if not working, we find another distraction. This can waste idle time because we are not actually being idle at all, but instead taking our free time and chaining our brains to a different occupation (notice how when someone is distracted they are "pre-occupied," but when they have a job to do, that is their "occupation").

When we allow ourselves to be idle, that is when our minds can wander, yes, to dangerous places. But also to fantastic ones. Idle time is how monks and aristocrats, having nothing better to do, once invented the rudiments of writing systems which eventually led to widespread literacy, and the ability of the common man to learn as much and more than nobles through self study.

Idleness is a luxury we should not take for granted if we can find enough of it in our lives to consider the bigger questions in the first place. but the old adage about idle hands still stands because the vast majority of us actually have a lot more free time than we tell ourselves and others. Everyone is "busy" in a capitalistic world because it is the only respectable thing to be. But how much time do we then squander on false-idles (pun intended) by scrolling, binge-watching, etcetera? We should instead try to be truly idle and understand the magic that can happen then, if we allow it.

You may have heard the apocryphal tales of famous songs that were originally scribbled on napkins in coffee shops, or the cafes from which sprang the Harry Potter series and other great works (There does also seem to be a nexus between coffee shops and great ideas, so check out that part of the page too). Scientists have woken up with sudden realizations to the puzzles they pored over incessantly with their active minds. Taking moments of idleness can reap clarity of vision, unforeseen epiphanies, and more. But only if you don't waste it.

Whether any of us like to admit it, we are creatures of habit. This is one reason that the state of "flow" feels so good to us. It's synergy and zen; a psychological-mechanical union that dims distractions, calms the nerves, and focuses the mind on the task at hand. You don't find this state by divergent, disruptive, thinking. Yet, we need both calm and chaos in our lives to achieve our potential. Chaos begets wild experimentation and disruption. These forces in turn occasionally beget innovation/epiphany/eureka moments. But the implementation of great ideas requires an opposite energy; the calm, resolute focus we thrive in when achieving a state of "flow" in our work or play.

So the next time you have free time, try letting your mind be truly free. You never know what you might discover.

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