Little Life Letters

Dear Readers,

There is some guilt in doing nothing, don’t you think? Those days where you sleep in late, don’t leave the house, and just exist. The last four days have been like that for me, and I felt guilty. I didn’t realise I did until I got ready for bed, going through what I needed to do the next day and felt this sudden feeling that I couldn’t shake. Wrapping myself up in my blanket realising that I had done nothing for four days. Now I had a valid reason for doing nothing, but in my head I still couldn’t justify it. A deep-rooted idea that spending days with no intentions felt wasted and that I had gained nothing.

What is doing nothing? Is it doomscrolling all day, staring at the ceiling, sleeping all day, or just having no expectations on what you do that day?. You can’t truly define doing nothing but we all experience the same guilt with whatever definition we have.

I think this ideology started with my grandad, he has this saying ‘I was born before you’. Which he used to emphasise how much he’s done and that you can’t do anything that he hasn’t achieved. He does mean this in a joking way but I think this saying plays in my mind in a more serious manner. The older generation have this idea ingrained in them, the need to work and push through anything. Rest days are for the lazy and no matter what you are going through, you keep your head down and carry on. The idea you could lose a limb but still need to attend a meeting the next day, and they may joke and say it’s an exaggeration – and it is. But they still subtly drop similar thought into conversation that reinforce it.

This ideology doesn’t just fall on the shoulders of the older generation, but also on the younger people, who on social media push this narrative of productivity and perfect routines that will allow you to manifest and achieve everything you want in life, if you just follow this minute-by-minute routine they never stop going on about. The 5am wakeup, cold showers, meal preps, morning walks before your 9-5 job. Its like every five videos on TikTok or Instagram is a day in the life that follows some ridiculously curated day, that you know isn’t real but still fills you with the same feeling of inadequacy for not doing what they do. The productivity obsessed culture we live in feeds the guilt we feel even though we are aware that peoples lives on social media aren’t real and that it’s okay to rest and do nothing.

Rest is essential in life, and not just sleeping. Active rest to reset your mind is something everyone needs to do. Sometime I feel as though I need to ‘earn’ rest, that I haven’t achieved enough to warrant a break even when I’m on the verge of burning out. And at times like this is when the guilt sneaks in. The voice in my head say ‘just one more…’ and then I can rest, even though I know its now going to take longer to recover because I’ve pushed myself to far. No matter how aware I am of this fact, I continue to do it. The guilt stops me from resting but I feel more guilt in not listening to my body when I know it needs to stop and take a breath. Doing nothing is how we refuel our bodies to show up and achieve our goals in every part of life.

There is ways I’ve found to soften the guilt, even though it’s cliche, going for a walk, or listening to a podcast. These are ways to rest and reset that feel like doing nothing but still itch that part of my brain that feels the urge to constantly be doing something. I’ve still not learnt how to just take a day to do ‘nothing’ without the guilt – a valid reason even though you don’t need one. However, finding those in-between moments in life, and acknowledging them makes it all a little bit easier.

Until next time,

Lillie x