Dare to nap

by Richard Reeve on September 6, 2009

in AziMuth

I recall one college philosophy professor distinctly making the claim that the trouble with our culture is that we have lost the ability to repose in idleness. Without a certain latitude to our purposeful anxiety, he argued, the mind would never be receptive to new insights. Each and every piece of mental energy instead gets placed into the service of the almighty agenda.

To counter our collective addiction to living by the list, I’m about to keep a promise to myself in celebration of this Labor Day weekend and in memory of that obscure philosopher. It’s one I’d like to think you’ll make yourself as well. I’m going to take a nap.

Now where’s that pillow?

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  • Thank you so much for this. This message is critical to improving the quality of our lives in this harried society. It's been the theme of several books I've read, including Distracted by Maggie Jackson, and The Lonely American by Jacqueline Olds, MD and Richard Schwartz, MD. I know now that I'm an introvert, thanks to Marti Olsen Laney's book The Introvert Advantage, and that my trait makes it even more important for me to have "down time." It's not easy to do in this society but it's so important. There have been many articles published in the past year, in Scientific American and the Wall Street Journal, for example, that have stressed this, along with the futility of "multi-tasking." There's also an organization called "Take Back Your Time" that is trying to get this message across, and introduce federal legislation to require all employers to provide a minimum of 2 weeks paid vacation. Right now, in the United States, no employer is legally obligated to provide any paid vacation time to their employees.
  • Thanks for sharing all these book titles...they are new to me. And for
    your interesting and well developed comment...
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