Do Nothing

Introduction

It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.

Bertrand Russell, “In Praise of Idleness” 1932

The passage at the beginning of this Introduction was written in 1932, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, which caused the Great Depression. Russell’s description of the “cult of efficiency” predates World War II, the rise of rock and roll, the civil rights movement, and the dawn of the twenty-first century. More important, in my mind: It was written before the creation of the internet and smartphones and social media. In other words, technology didn’t create this cult; it simply added to an existing culture.

But at some point, drive became inextricably intertwined with dread: dread that all my work and effort would never be enough. Eventually, I got lucky. I achieved much of what I wanted by the time I hit my forties, and I had time to stop, take a breath, and reexamine my way of life. While I’d always been driven, I’d also been exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed.

I considered the fact that I did things rarely for their own sake, but in service to my drive to constantly improve and be productive.

Here in the States, we’re particularly bad about taking time off. We chose not to take 705 million vacation days in 2017, and more than 200 million of those were lost forever because they couldn’t be carried over to the next year. That means Americans donated $62 billion to their employers in one year.

Part 1: The Cult of Efficiency

Chapter 1: Mind the Gap

As the industrial era chugged ahead, craftsmen were pulled into the factories. A glassblower couldn’t compete with a glass factory. So he sold his tools and took up a position on a factory floor, where the instruments and machinery were owned not by workers but by the employer. When a worker left a job, he no longer took with him the means to find new work. He relied entirely on a new employer to supply the tools and the resources. Again, this was a significant transfer of power.

Chapter 2: It Starts With a Steam Engine

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Chapter 3: Work Ethic

The Protestant work ethic, though, viewed idleness as immoral and hard work as virtuous. So employers could convince devout employees to work long hours regardless of the wages paid. Even the janitor and the plumber are doing God’s work, according to Martin Luther, and no job is unworthy in the eyes of the Lord.

Even today, despite the income gap being higher in the United States than in almost any other nation, many Americans believe they can rise to riches through honest labor, and that belief fuels a willingness to work too much, even when we’re not reaping the profits of our labor.

When time is money, idle hours are a waste of money. This is the philosophical underpinning of all our modern stress: that time is too valuable to waste. We don’t pass time, we spend it. It’s no wonder that we don’t really have pastimes anymore.

It’s clear, though, that the average worker hadn’t full bought into this story line by the early twentieth century. My grandparents were still “wasting their time” gardening and going to social clubs and spending hours in national parks enjoying the view without taking pictures to share on Instagram. It would take another fifty or sixty years for most of us to believe the company line. Still, this underlying faith in productivity, hard work, and efficiency was bubbling beneath the surface when the world went to war. At that point, efficient production became not just a goal but a necessity, in order to support the war effort.

This resonates; I don’t participate much in social media (literally just a small amount on Mastodon) but still feel the self-imposed pressures to always produce, and have even noticed it leaking into photography. Without something “productive” resulting from it (like a post), what’s the point? It’s caused me to stop taking photographs for quite awhile, something I enjoyed and now miss. It is time to return to art for art’s sake.

Why do I have more to do than my grandmother, despite owning a dishwasher, microwave, and portable computer?

The workplace started to resemble the home, with kitchens and lunchrooms and social areas, so there was less reason to leave the office.

The sense that time was too valuable to be spent at a barbecue or baseball game started to make people feel anxious about what they did in their off-hours. Leisure began to feel stressful.

I feel this as well, though defined by the more abstract concept of productivity as opposed to wealth.

Chapter 4: Time Becomes Money

What those study participants felt was time scarcity. As something rises in value, it begins to seem rarer and more precious. So you can feel as though you’re short on time, even if you’re

As something rises in value, it begins to seem rarer and more precious. So you can feel as though you’re short on time, even if you’re not. Only your perception has changed.

…businesses in the United States alone lose more than $300 billion every year because of absenteeism and health-care costs related to stress and anxiety.

Corporate management still has a nineteenth-century mind-set in a twenty-first-century workplace.

When a recession hits and profits fall, many companies will immediately make cuts to staffing. The workers who keep their jobs are often called upon to pick up the tasks and duties left behind by laid-off employees, and it’s unlikely the survivors will complain about the increase in workload because they’re afraid they’ll be laid off too.

“Don’t tell me that there’s something uniquely demanding about building yet another fucking startup that dwarfs the accomplishments of The Origin of Species or winning five championship rings. It’s bullshit.

The glorification of consumerism creates a vicious cycle. We work longer and longer hours in order to buy products that we think will make our lives better, we stop enjoying them fairly quickly, the products themselves require time and maintenance that cut into our free time, this makes us unhappy, so we decide to relieve our feelings of sadness with a new product. Rinse and repeat.

Chapter 5: Work Comes Home

The quest for achieving peak productivity is now akin to a religion,

Why just make a cake when you can search through Pinterest and find the best cake recipe with the cutest decoration ideas? Almost no one searches for a “good workout routine,” instead looking for the “ultimate workout.” We want the fastest, most efficient method for reaching our goals, hopefully guaranteed by as many five-star reviews as possible.

If your goal is rote dictation, then typing into a laptop is definitely more efficient. Many students type so quickly that they can record nearly every word a professor utters. But we’ve known for years that using electronics to take notes is not the best way to understand what you’re hearing or retain the information.

Europe may have family crests, but America has company logos.

…we’ve lost sight of the fact that productivity is a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself.

For most of my adult life, I have thought that if I’m not making pesto from scratch, I could at least do some yoga, and if not yoga, I could at least write a quick blog post. In many ways, I make decisions based on how the choices and outcomes might affect my résumé of life.

…we engage in busyness that is mostly goal-oriented and designed to create a public persona, rather than hobbies that are merely intended to enrich our lives.

…when a culture is focused on individuals and not on communities, people tend to emphasize achievement over affiliation.

The social psychologist Harry Triandis points out that when a culture is focused on individuals and not on communities, people tend to emphasize achievement over affiliation.

Chapter 6: The Busiest Gender

Our attention is now nearly always divided, because we seem to be always working on something. Our hobbies have become goals. Our homes have become offices and our free time is not free.

…the goal of overparenting is to guarantee that you raise a healthy and successful child. It relies on checklists and catalogs of items your child “needs” to have a good childhood. In terms of productivity, the child is the product and the parent sometimes goes overboard in trying to make that product the best one on the market.

Children with helicopter parents often struggle to develop self-reliance and resilience. They have simply been too often protected from adversity.

Chapter 7: Do We Live to Work?

For centuries now, the Protestant faith has been among the most vigorous in declaring the virtue of work and the shamefulness of even short periods of idleness. This emphasis has become so embedded in our psyches that research shows emotional trauma caused by unemployment is actually 40 percent more severe among Protestants.

Emerson said that “beauty is its own excuse for being,”

According to data from the United Nations, work kills more than twice as many people annually than war does and more than both drugs and alcohol combined.

One of the tragic consequences of rising smartphone usage is the death of boredom.

Chapter 8: Universal Human Nature

By the time a child is four to six months old, their parent can identify their cry and distinguish it from other children’s with nearly 100 percent accuracy. That’s how unique and expressive the human voice is.

If you think you’re hearing someone speak to you, the part of your brain associated with empathy perks up, and you are more likely to feel compassionate toward that person. This is a big part of why our overuse of email and texting is contributing to dehumanization and hatred:

…researchers discovered that the brain waves of the dozen people listening to the same story began to mirror those of the storyteller. When the listeners were engaged, their brain activity was almost synchronous with that of the person talking.

In some instances, the synchronization was so strong that the listener’s brain would anticipate changes in the speaker’s brain by a fraction of a second. That’s amazing stuff!

Having rules allows us to coexist in peace. One scientist pointed out to me that apes would never be able to gather with other unknown apes simply for the purpose of entertainment. “Chimps,” Frans de Waal says, “would fight.” Yet we regularly gather by the thousands for concerts and parades, and we get along because we sit in our assigned seats and stand behind the yellow lines and stop talking when the music starts. We get along because we know and follow the rules. We have centuries of evolution urging us to follow social norms. Some people resist that urge, but most don’t.

In light of modern trends in concert and other public behavior, are we devolving?

Chapter 9: Is Tech to Blame?

Researchers at USC analyzed 16 billion emails and found that once you’ve hit send, you’re likely to get a response within two minutes, and most people reply in less than an hour.

…your brain doesn’t really distinguish between posting on Facebook and working in the office. If you’re prone to using social media or answering texts and emails while you’re in bed, you’re telling your brain that the bed is a place for work, not rest.

Your mind treats all those notifications that come in as seriously as it treats a fire alarm or a knock on the door. Basically, whenever you have your phone at hand, your brain is spending a certain amount of energy preparing to respond to possible emergencies. A little chime sounds, indicating that you’ve gotten a text message, and it activates the stress hormones in your head. Your body goes into fight-or-flight mode and your muscles may even contract, preparing you to run.

… and imagine for a highly sensitive person, it’s no wonder I can get so overwhelmed.

Access to the internet also makes us think we know more than we do.

Researchers at Yale conducted a series of experiments involving more than a thousand people. In one study, participants were told how zippers work. Half of them were instructed to confirm the details of the explanation by searching online. Then they were all asked a bunch of totally unrelated questions like “How do tornadoes form?” Those who’d been allowed to look online for information about zippers were more likely to think they knew more about everything they were asked, even weather, history, and food.

Part II: Leaving the Cult: How to Go From Life Hack to Life Back

Life-Back One: Challenge Your Perceptions

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Life-Back Two: Take the Media Out of Your Social

Unreasonably high standards and severe self-criticism are linked to high blood pressure, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation. Therapists will tell you that you cannot both strive to be perfect and enjoy good mental health. They are mutually exclusive.

Life-Back Three: Step Away From Your Desk

A steam drill or conveyor belt or computer can labor without rest, but humans need regular breaks. We don’t persist; we pulse.

It feels efficient when we switch tasks like this, but that efficiency is an illusion. Once you break your focus for any reason, it takes an average of twenty-three minutes to get back to full concentration.

Life-Back Four: Invest in Leisure

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Life-Back Five: Make Real Connections

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Life-Back Six: Take the Long View

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Conclusion

Stop trading time for money. The simple act of placing a value on an hour has made us loath to waste even a minute, and the more money you have, the more expensive your time is and the more you feel you don’t have enough time to spare. Our perception of time is now horribly warped.

It’s time to stop viewing your off-hours as potential money-making time.

But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to create programs that specifically increase the creative drive, and equally tricky to track creativity. How do you know if a child has become more creative over the course of a school year? How can that be measured?

The self-made-man fairy tale is part of a shaming culture.