In America, we have a concept we call work-life balance, which essentially means we work ourselves to the bone, then run a bunch or errands, and collapse into bed to scroll on our phones for half an hour. On the weekend, we watch television, check a few work emails, and try to catch up on sleep. This isn’t balance. Not even close.
I’ve noticed in the past this unbalanced habit forming in me. As a parish priest, there’s always more work to be done and the drive toward productivity is strong. It’s almost a feeling of guilt to not actively be doing something, even on off-days. Wasting time, we’ve been conditioned to believe, is a vice.
In America, we’re the inheritors of what’s called the puritan work ethic. The idea that idle hands are evil is deeply ingrained, even to the extent that we think of successful, hard-working people as the paragons of character and virtue. This even seeps into our spirituality. For instance, how many churches preach some version of a prosperity gospel in which faith is equated to worldly success? Hard workers who get ahead in life are thought to be closer to God.
But what if our cultural assumptions are backwards? We’re all stressed out, working too much, and our leisure time devolves into mindless entertainment because we’re so tired. We’re focused so much on the work-week we forget to enjoy our rest days. Remember, God didn’t give us a 7-day work-week. We’re made for the 7th day, and Heaven is described as the eternal enjoyment of rest.
This means that, when we seek work-life balance, we should prioritize the “life” part, not the “work” part. We are meant to enjoy our time on earth and be happy. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work, but it does mean that work should support our leisure time, not the other way around. We work to enable leisure. This is where our energy ought to be directed – towards leisure.
Extreme leisure
By leisure, I don’t mean watching television and scrolling social media. To me, these activities are a mindless mediocrity that I wish I indulged in less than I do. It seems to me that we need to get more extreme – some leisure should take way more energy and some way less.
Some leisure takes a lot of energy - exercise, gardening, sports, playing a musical instrument, going to a holy hour, prayer, game night, hosting parties and gatherings - but I’ve found that, when I put the energy required into these activities, I’m always rewarded with more energy, unlike social media which saps my energy.
Other leisure requires far less energy, by which I mean that sometimes it’s great to do literally nothing. There’s an Italian saying; “Dolce far niente,” meaning “It’s sweet to do nothing.”
Take a break. Have a cup of coffee and look at clouds. Have a glass of wine at the cafe and people-watch. Give your spouse a hug. Pick flowers with your toddler. Read a pleasant book that has no practical value. Take up watercolors or drawing and don’t worry if your picture is good or even if you finish it.
The beauty of doing nothing
The English painter John William Waterhouse actually has two different paintings with the exact title; Dolce Far Niente.
The first was completed in 1879. The subject is an elaborately dressed woman lying on an oriental rug with her head on a pillow. She’s plucking white feathers off a fan and allowing them to drift away in the wind the way a child would with dandelion seeds. Although Waterhouse had been raised as an Englishman, he was born in Rome and this painting with its Italian title clearly is about much more than a single woman or scene. It’s a reference to an entire philosophy of life he became aquainted with in Italy.
The following year, in 1880, he made a similar painting with the same title. This second picture is set in the ancient city of Pompeii, which we know because the red and white columns behind the couch are specific to the interiors found at Pompeii. When Waterhouse visited his birth country in 1877, he visited the site and personally saw the columns which had recently been uncovered by archaeologists. In this second painting, we see again a well-dressed woman lounging with a fan made of feathers, lazily plucking flowers and doing nothing. She’s so still that birds have boldly gathered around.
Waterhouse is painting the beauty of doing nothing. He doesn’t want us to miss it. There’s value to lazy summer days. We can’t allow our need to be constantly productive to get in the way. I feel the constant urge to jump into action. Fix it. Do something. Anything. Be productive. I want to feel like I’m helping. In the meantime, life is passing me by.
So, to get ready for summer, I’ve been using my day off to practice doing nothing. I take a book out to the garden. Maybe I read it a bit, have a cappuccino, watch the sky, push my daughter on the rope swing. Later, we walk down the block to the mulberry tree and immoderately eat the fruit as we pick it. The older kids might drift out and make small talk. I resist the urge to do anything productive. I even allow myself to be little bit bored.
I’ve found all this to be terribly energizing.
The long afternoons really are not nothing. They’re an appreciation for beauty, pleasure, and savoring the simple joys of life. Sure, there are many days when this type of sweet nothing is impossible. Work must be accomplished and it would be irresponsible to avoid it. I have days off when the duties of life nevertheless intervene.
My system isn’t perfect; sometimes I only manage to be lazy for half an hour. I still haven’t managed to find a good fan made of peacock feathers, but I’ve found that there’s benefit even in an imperfect embrace of dolce far niente because it has helped me gain new perspective on a true work-life balance. Summer is coming fast. Find the sweet spot.
