making peace with idleness
i can never go easy on myself — entry 06
number one on my christmas wishlist last year was a planner. the muji one, with the polyprolene cover and vertical layout. i was specific, and my workmate who got my name for the exchange gift was generous enough to grant my wish. with most of the year spent inside the house, there’s a running joke on twitter about empty planners. i feel bad for everyone who bought 2020 planners, one tweet said. my dumbest purchase this year was a planner, said another one with thousands of likes and retweets.
mine sits on my desk as i’m typing this, looking worn and beaten. i examine it. the transparent cover is almost greyish now, very far from how it looked when i unwrapped it during our christmas party. peeking through the edges of certain pages are sticker labels that say money tracker, long term goals, habit tracker for easier navigation. inside, daily tasks are segregated in two categories: work and personal. most days, both sections are so full that my list of tasks for one day reach the spaces intended for the next.
i’ve heard people say that our lives are now forever divided in two: pre-pandemic and now. but flipping through the pages of my planner, it almost seems nothing has changed throughout the year. my days are just as filled with boxes of tasks to tick, if not even more.
joining the rat race
“you didn’t wake up today to be mediocre,” the first page of my 2015 planner said in cute lettering with little ornament illustrations around it. it served as a reminder to my 20-year-old self to always use my time for self-improvement. that was five years ago. i was a year away from graduating college and i recently finished reading the book girlboss by sophia amoruso. i was ready to start my carefully-crafted game plan for success.
i am, by nature, a restless person. and i want to be everything at once and find time for it all.
growing up, i’ve always had this need to be seen as “extraordinary”. in grade school, i was consistently top of our grade, an active member of multiple clubs, and a regular representative and winner in inter-school competitions. i remember sobbing when i slipped to second honors for one quarter in third grade. in high school, i juggled being the editor of the school paper and the creative head of the school yearbook. in college, i spent half of my time finishing my degree and the other half writing and editing the college paper.
and when i graduated and started working full time as a writer, i spent my nights and weekends doing even more work. i used to argue that i needed the part-time creative gigs for extra money, but really, i just couldn’t stop working. i never allowed myself to.
i wanted to climb the success ladder i’ve set up for myself as fast as possible. in an industry where connections are as important as talent, sometimes even more so, i spent all my time working so i can have bylines on the right publications and be recognized by the powerful and important people. because if i’m not aggressively trying to advance my career, then what the hell am i doing with my life?
reality bites (1994, dir. ben stiller)
the pursuit of a rewarding career and a greater purpose has been instilled deep in our psyche since we were young that we rarely see the need to question it. a large part of our childhood was spent answering questions of what we want to become someday and learning how to get to that grand ambition. in effect, most of us spend the majority of our adulthood craving for recognition, and working for the approval and admiration of our family, friends, bosses, mentors, rivals, or anyone, really.
as times changed, the concept of success changed with it, but not exactly for the better. today, having your life together meant having it all and being able to do it all. a stable full-time job, a thriving small business, a well-stamped passport, and a happy and healthy relationship. success now is improving yourself to death and continuously achieving multitude of things at a young age. and anything other than that somehow means wasting your life away.
slacking off and feeling okay about it
every morning, seven days a week, i start each day by listing down everything i need to get done — no matter how trivial. exercise for thirty minutes, finish writing essay, ideate for next essay, complete a skillshare class, read two chapters of a book. i tell myself that i need to meticulously plan out my day because i’m forgetful. and while that is partly true, this is also because of my constant need to make every moment of my life productive.
anne petersen, author and writer of one of my favorite newsletters culture study, said it best: “‘to adult’ is to complete your to-do list — but everything goes on the list, and the list never ends”
when i found out that we will be working from home for the foreseeable future, i fantasized about all the things i can do with my extra time. i can exercise every morning, i can accept more freelance work, i can paint again, i can start writing for fun again, i can finish more books. i can finally do it all — and i did. i consistently kept this “well-balanced” routine for more than four months. i felt fantastic.
but in the early weeks of august, i fell down a slump. i started waking up late and started skipping workouts. i spent hours staring at a blinking cursor. i couldn’t complete even the simplest item on my list.
society’s “hustle and grind” culture made us think of idleness as the mortal enemy. it’s being lazy, it’s wasting all your potential, it’s failing to make something of yourself. i have always viewed days off as something to be earned, a reward that can only be enjoyed once i finish something tangible. there’s always an overwhelming amount of guilt whenever i’m not creating something, as if all my time on earth should be spent making something in order to prove that i can be someone and that i deserve to be somewhere — whatever that means.
illustration by aya zafe
during one of my days of stagnation, my horoscope app sent me a notification: what if you just give yourself room to breathe? i took it quite literally. i got out of bed and spent a whole saturday cleaning and reorganizing my room. i changed the layout, put everything in the right place, hoping that it would break me out of my slump.
tidying up my space didn’t bring me back to my days of productivity like i was hoping it would. instead, it gave me a clean slate. i started spending hours in bed, doing and thinking of nothing, without guilt. i would light a candle and read a book. sometimes, i just let my mind be still.
slowly, i shifted my perspective about productivity, status, and success in general. perhaps dreams and ambitions don’t have to be grand if we don’t want them to be.
perhaps the end goal can be nothing more than living a stable life with the woman i love and continuing to create art together even without a big audience. it doesn’t have to be writing the next great asian novel. a dream can be as simple as having a medium-sized apartment with a window that catches the perfect sunlight every afternoon. it doesn’t have to be traveling around the world. success can be as ordinary as being kind to everyone and maintaining true vulnerable friendships. an ambition doesn’t have to serve your own career or grow your bank account. it can be helping your community, continuously learning, and spraying it to as many people as possible.
there is nothing wrong with medium-sized dreams and not spending every waking hour to achieve it. while being productive has always been glorified in our culture, there is also something to be said about the quiet moments of taking a step back, collecting your thoughts, and just being. it’s a simple pleasure that i wish i allowed myself to enjoy sooner.
idleness is not the antithesis of success — whatever that word means to you. idleness can be valuable in this world where the noise can be deafening and the mess can be damaging. sometimes, especially in these times of great crisis, being idle is a way to get through.
i’m dropping out of the rat race and letting go of the idea that there’s a linear trajectory to take. i’d be in my room enjoying a novel if anyone needs me.
thank you for this ♥️