11/10/2026
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The Lost Art of Doing Nothing
There was a time, not so very long ago, when doing nothing was a perfectly respectable way of passing an afternoon.
People sat in chairs and looked out windows. They watched the rain falling on the fields, the occasional car passing along the road, or a neighbour making his way home from the village. They might comment on the weather, although there was rarely anything new to report. Sometimes they said nothing at all.
And nobody thought there was anything particularly wrong with this.
In the Ireland of my childhood, doing nothing was almost an art form. An elderly man could spend the better part of a Sunday afternoon sitting beside the fire, occasionally stirring the ashes with a poker, without feeling the slightest obligation to improve himself. He wasn't practising mindfulness or taking time out for his mental health. He was simply sitting there.
There was no app involved.
I remember visiting houses where the clock ticked loudly on the mantelpiece, the fire crackled in the grate, and the conversation moved at a pace that would be considered dangerously slow today. Someone might remark that there was a touch of frost coming. Another person would agree. A third might recall a particularly hard winter sometime in the 1960s.
And that could keep everyone occupied for twenty minutes.
Silence was never regarded as a failure of conversation. It was simply a natural part of it. People could sit together without feeling the need to fill every moment with words.
Nowadays, silence seems to make us nervous.
We reach for our phones in supermarket queues, at bus stops, in waiting rooms and, increasingly, in the middle of conversations. The slightest pause must be filled. There is always another message to check, another headline to read, another photograph of somebody's dinner to admire.
I sometimes wonder what our grandparents would have made of the sight of four people sitting around a table, each staring intently at a small illuminated rectangle.
They might have assumed that something terrible had happened.
Or perhaps that the rectangles contained the results of the cattle sales.
Even relaxation has become strangely competitive. We are encouraged to make the most of our free time, to develop new interests, set goals, count steps, monitor sleep and listen to podcasts while walking through the countryside.
A walk is no longer necessarily just a walk. It has to contribute to our physical fitness, improve our mood, burn calories or provide material for a photograph.
There was a time when a person could walk down a country road for an hour, return home and have absolutely nothing to show for it.
Except, perhaps, a little peace of mind.
The old Sunday afternoons were particularly good for doing nothing. Shops were closed, the roads were quiet, and the day seemed to stretch endlessly towards evening. After dinner, people might read the newspaper, listen to the radio or fall asleep in an armchair.
There was no pressure to make Sunday memorable.
Indeed, one of its great attractions was that it was often completely unmemorable.
Of course, I wouldn't want to romanticise the past too much. Those quieter days could also be lonely, particularly for people living in isolated places. There was boredom, too, and a good deal of it. The world was smaller, opportunities were fewer, and not everybody enjoyed the silence.
But somewhere along the way, in our determination to eliminate boredom, we seem to have lost something valuable.
We have forgotten how to be idle without feeling guilty.
I have noticed that even the language has changed. We no longer spend an afternoon doing nothing. We are *recharging our batteries*, *taking some personal time* or *prioritising self-care*. Everything must have a purpose, even rest.
Perhaps doing nothing is too simple an activity for the modern world. It requires no equipment, no subscription and no expert advice. There is nothing to purchase and very little to discuss afterwards.
You cannot even be certain that you have done it correctly.
And yet, some of the happiest moments in life are those in which nothing much happens.
A quiet evening in October. Rain tapping against the window. The last light fading over the fields. A cup of tea growing cold on the table while your thoughts wander from one thing to another.
No television. No telephone. No particular plans.
Just the reassuring feeling that, for a little while at least, nothing is expected of you.
Perhaps this is one of the small privileges of growing older. You begin to understand that not every hour has to be accounted for, not every day has to be productive, and not every silence needs to be broken.
There is a great deal to be said for sitting quietly and watching the world go by.
And if anyone asks what you've been doing all afternoon, there is still a perfectly good answer.
Nothing much.
And very enjoyable it was too.
