#14 Isn't It Okay to Do Nothing?

—Another day has ended without me doing anything.

I wanted to tidy up my room,
I wanted to read a lot of books,
I wanted to watch the TV shows I'd recorded,
I wanted to do the chores that had piled up,
and I wanted to do this and that.
In the end, I finished without doing anything.
It was a day off, too.

Oh man, I'm so useless.

When I'm at work, I think, 'On my next day off, I'll do this and that,' but when the day off actually arrives, I can't do anything at all.
I wonder how many days in my life I've spent blaming myself like that.

Thinking of it as 'recharging'

I started by wondering why I can't do anything in the first place.

Is it because I'm lazy?

Is it because I'm a good-for-nothing who can't find the motivation?

I decided to change that way of thinking.
From a certain day on, I decided to think of the reason I can't do anything like this.

That I am 'out of charge'.

If you don't charge your smartphone or PC, you can't open your notes or apps.
It's the same for humans; if you don't recharge, you can't do the things you want to do.

In other words, lazing around without doing anything is,
a human form of 'recharging'.

In fact, when I go to work the day after I've spent the day lazing around, I feel that my energy has recovered. It might take a day or two to fully recover from some fatigue, but at the very least, my body definitely feels more refreshed than it did when I left work before my day off.
Well, there is a little bit of 'day-off brain' too.
But that's the same for smartphones and PCs. Sometimes they are a bit slow to start up after you turn them off and on again. It's just like that.

Since then, Istopped blaming myself on days I spent lazing around.
Instead, I started thinking,'Alright, I've recharged!'By doing that, the guilt of resting has faded significantly.
It might be one way to boost self-esteem.

Well, it's just part of the charm that sometimes I think I'd like to recharge a little more.

Resting is protecting yourself

Actually, because I didn't rest by lazing around, something terrible happened last year.

July.
Because it was summer vacation, my library work was busy.
I also had to write a novel for a hobby for a certain award deadline by the end of July,
and thankfully, I also had invitations from friends,
so before I knew it, I had spent the time without making a single day to laze around.
And then, there was the incredible heat wave.
My body must have been screaming for help.

On August 1st, I ended up catching the coronavirus.

I was with friends from July 28th to the 30th, but my friends didn't get infected.
That was a huge relief, but what I realized then was the importance of immune strength.
By the time I met my friends, I was feeling quite exhausted.
On the other hand, my friends were very energetic.
I think the turning point for the COVID infection was there.
Fatigue definitely lowers immune strength.
Resting properly is a way to protect yourself—I experienced that firsthand.

You don't have to feel guilty about being lazy.

I used to be the same way, but I wonder if there are people who feel guilty about resting, being lazy, or spending time doing nothing.

If I slack off here, I'll become a failure!

If I rest here, I might get left behind by everyone else!

It's okay.
The fact that you can think that way meansyou are not a failure, and you will absolutely not be left behind by others.
This is because people who think that way are working hard every day.
As I wrote in a previous article, humans are working hard just by being alive.

So, don't hesitate to take a proper rest. Go ahead and be lazy.
Because that is the necessary recharging time for you.