The Art of Doing Nothing
Graphic by Miguel Rodriguez
When was the last time that you truly did nothing? Not doomscrolling on TikTok, not stressing out over homework, but just sitting with your thoughts and just experiencing life? If you’re anything like me, the answer’s probably never. At least, that was my answer until I started going through a quarter-life crisis. Or maybe it was because my pockets started feeling a little empty after the holidays—who’s to say? Either way, I’ve started to feel so much better about my mental health and my relationships since I’ve changed my mindset and really embraced doing absolutely nothing.
Now, when I say “doing nothing,” I don’t literally mean doing absolutely nothing. Doing nothing is more of a mindset than anything else. You can do nothing by yourself, you can do it with friends, you can do it while reading a book, you can even do it without it sounding like an innuendo (which I am clearly failing at right now). Essentially, the doing nothing mindset simply means that you’re not going out and spending money on absurd activities, but rather that you’re spending quality time with yourself or your loved ones.
If you’re from a small town, you can probably understand this idea a little better than those from bigger cities. Think of a lonely winter night (probably a lot like the ones we’ve been having in Syracuse recently.) Nothing’s open because it’s too late and too cold. Your roommates are home and studying for exams so you can’t have people over, but you still want to hang out with friends. So what do you do? You get in the biggest car that your friend group owns and you drive around until you find an empty parking lot, eventually settling down and gossiping until three in the morning. If you have a memory like this, it’s probably one of the closest you’ve ever felt with your friends and has become a core memory of your friend group. But here’s the kicker: you didn’t spend a single cent (other than maybe for gas money) or even really do anything of substance. You just enjoyed the quality time that you had with your loved ones. And isn’t that what it’s all really about? You technically did nothing, but you didn’t feel bored. You didn’t feel like you had to fill the time with looking at a screen or spending money on trinkets that you wouldn’t even look at in three months' time. All you had to do was take a few hours out of your day to destress your brain and relax with your friends.
Even if your friends don’t have enough time to spend hours in a parking lot together, there are still many ways to practice the art of doing nothing alone. I’ve found that you can even turn something as regular as taking a shower, calling a loved one or listening to music into a time to do nothing and stay in tune with yourself and your personal needs. Besides, all of those activities really prevent you from doing anything else that you might be tempted to do on your phone when you could be focusing on making yourself a priority.
And that’s what the doing nothing mindset is all about. It’s about reteaching yourself how to spend your personal time so that you feel more satisfied with your life. So, next time you feel tempted to doomscroll for hours on end, think about how much better it would feel to catch up with a family member or listen to that album that you’ve been meaning to listen to. At the end of the day, I think we all know which one would make us more fulfilled.