Get bored is our columnist’s advice.
Ursula von ArxJournalist and book author
We know that big plans often go haywire, that we’re terrible at predicting what makes us happy, that we can’t escape. Nevertheless, the longing for a new start is great. Are you still looking for resolutions for the new year? Here are two that are guaranteed to thicken your life.
First: Choose three activities that you will give up in the new year. You won’t go after them anymore, no way, cut it out, get the hell out of there. It’s not about biting your nails less or biting your kids less. You should let go of good habits rather than bad ones. Why? To make the world a better place.
For example, you say goodbye to your countless efforts to reunite with your scruffy high school friend. Because you don’t have time for everything, not even for everything important. So you must learn to distinguish the good deeds from the better ones. Maybe you won’t find time for your photo collection or your widowed uncle in the new year. In return, you can take better care of your sick friend.
The second resolution goes further: Do nothing every day.
Because the restless busyness makes your inside untouchable. It’s an escape from emptiness, from stillness, from yourself. So as soon as you finish reading this column, start doing nothing. If you think you don’t have time to get bored, start with five minutes. Every day for five minutes you do: nothing. If you feel bad about it, you can also call that five minutes of total laziness, which is five minutes of total freedom, meditation. But only if you promise to forget right away that there are studies that show that meditation makes you more creative, more productive, happier.
So this is how you sit in your chair and breathe. You think nothing, want nothing, have nothing, you breathe. If you digress to the tax return, keep breathing. When you think of the unharvested quince tree, which in its fullness seemed both sad and happy at the same time, keep breathing. When you’re too lazy to breathe, you think: everything will be fine.
Ursula von Arx sometimes gets upset about the laziness of others. Probably because she lacks the talent for it. Von Arx writes in Blick every second Monday.