On Doing Nothing

At this moment there is nothing that I crave more than doing nothing.
Now that Im studying, working, going to the gym, and doing the housework, all
of them almost at the same time, I yearn for those glorious moments
frequently during the summer holidays in which I have nothing better to do
than just sleep, eat, and breathe. But when I consider this ideal more deeply, I
realize that these moments of laziness arent as relaxing as I think they are, for
whenever I do nothing I feel the irrepressible impulse of doing everything.
It doesnt matter what it is. Even the freakiest activities may seem worth
doing when I should be resting and letting myself merely live. What I found out
some years ago is that I keep active for one particular and rather unconscious
reason: it prevents me from overthinking. Whenever Im doing nothing my
mind has plenty of time and space to review even the most insignificant detail
of what happened during my day, to try to find explanations for everything that
has happened to me, and to extract (most of the times) the wildest
conclusions. The result is that after a short period of uselessness and
increasing stress, I crave for any type of distraction capable of keeping my
mind occupied.
Somewhere deep in my mind I know it is pointless to think time and time
again of the same subject, of how I would act in a different situation, of what
one of my friends or my boyfriend meant when thay said this or that, or on why
a situation turned out in a particular way. Sometimes, things just happen and it
is not possible or necessary to find a logical explanation that makes sense in
our heads. Unfortunately, it is not such an easy task for my brain to
acknowledge this simple truth. That is why the easiest way out has always
been for me to leave no room for any type of pseudo-psychological analysis
and to fill it with any type of time-consuming activity.
But at the same time I realize that it is important to learn to enjoy doing
nothing. Every Sunday I see my father sink in the living-room sofa, completely
depressed because he has nothing to do. He doesnt want to go to see the
sunset with my mother, he doesnt want to go for a walk or to play with his
grandchildren. I definitely dont want to be like him in that sense. Not long ago I
came to the conclusion that, in the end, doing nothing allows me to enjoy those
little things that the hustle and bustle of everyday life prevents me from
appreciating: a sunny day, a special moment with those I love, a smile or a
simple gentle act. Starting to make little halts in my life has opened my eyes to
let me enjoy those things that were invisible for me before. Leaving these short
moments once in a while during my day has given me the amount of time
necessary to reconsider those moments of my day that really deserve my
attention, but not as much as to overthink about them.
Finding the right balance between doing nothing and overthinking and
doing nothing and hence not stopping to see what is going on around me is one
of the hardest goals I have resolved to accomplish. But I know that little by

little Im changing the way I conceive doing nothing, turning it into something
that may have a highly positive side and that may help me to clear not only my
eyes but also my mind.
Jaqueline Fantini