I was reading today about the Italian expression 'bel far niente,' which means 'the beauty of doing nothing' and is a cherished Italian ideal. It made me think about Americans and what an American thing it is to work so many hours and week and so many weeks a year and how even in our downtime, we feel we must be accomplishing something.
I am as or more guilty of this than the next person. I'm not very good at sitting and doing nothing. At all. In fact, my husband and daughter make fun of me for it. Honestly, I don't know why I embrace that way of life. Although I do get a certain satisfaction after a productive day when I've been able to check a lot of things off of my ever-changing, never-shrinking list of to-dos, constantly being in that mind set certainly doesn't make me happy.
Before I even encountered 'bel far niente,' I'd been starting to think that I'd like to get off my self-propelled treadmill. Thinking that I should be using some of my days to do things that are just for the sake of pleasure, not to get something done or check something off that imaginary list. I feel like I've done a fairly good job of that this weekend. Yeah, I worked on laundry and did a bunch of make-ahead breakfasts to take to work this week, but I also read and took myself out for a cup of coffee and kept the tv off and read some more. As a result, I've had a pretty relaxing, happy weekend. It would be great if this were the start of something permanent. And there's no reason it can't be.
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