Do You Feel Guilty Doing Nothing

Author John Patrick

March 29th 3:53 PM

Do you feel guilty doing nothing? It’s a conversation we got into the other morning on the show.

Are You Comfortable Doing Nothing?

There’s ample evidence that leisure time is becoming more and more of a priority.  And that it should.  We realize and acknowledge that.  But that’s doesn’t mean when we do relax, we don’t feel guilty, we do.  At least some of us do.

Let’s look at some recent research from Psych Central.

On average, we have between four and six hours of leisure time every day.  In 2022, men spent an average of 5.6 hours “doing nothing” each day. Women, on average, 4.8 hours a day.

When we say doing nothing, what does that mean?  We’re not doing nothing.  You’ve got to be doing something, even if it’s not productive.  You can probably guess what most of us do with our leisure time, yep, we watch TV.  According to the research, we watch, on average, 2.8 hours of TV each day.  That’s half of our leisure time.

Women Feel They Need To Earn Leisure Time

Here’s another thing the research uncovered.  Most women don’t feel like they deserve leisure time.  They feel they have to earn it.  Almost since the beginning of time women have been turning leisure time into productive activities.  Think about the woman that began knitting to relax and then turned it into a productive activity.

The research goes on to say that when it comes to prioritizing leisure time, we Americans could/should take some cues from the Europeans.  Norwegians average more than 6 hours of leisure time each day.  Greeks, 5.5 hours per day.

All of which gets me back to the conversation on the morning show.  We know leisure time is important.  And many of us say we want and need more of it.  But then, when we are sitting around, there’s this overwhelming feeling that we’re being lazy and should be getting up and doing something.

If you’re a couch potato all the time, then yes, you should get up and do something.  But, if you work hard, long hours, taking care of the kids, whatever it might be, take the time to do nothing.  And relish it.  You’ll be getting up soon enough.

Here Are The Notable Titles Coming To Streaming In April

• Ripley

  This black-and-white thriller series stars Andrew Scott as protagonist Tom Ripley, based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling Tom Ripley novels. Set in Italy in the ’60s, the eight-episode limited series follows grifter Ripley in New York, who is hired by a wealthy industrialist to travel to Italy to try to convince the man’s dilettante son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), to return home. Accepting the job is Tom’s first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud, and murder. Ripley premieres April 4 on Netflix.

• Sugar

  Starring Colin Farrell, Sugar is a modern take on the classic noir detective story, set in California. Farrell plays John Sugar, a private investigator trying to track down the granddaughter of a Hollywood producer. As Sugar gets closer to the answers he needs, the case begins to unravel, as he uncovers deeply buried secrets certain powerful forces don’t what him finding out. The eight-episode drama debuts on AppleTV+ on April 5.

• Fallout

  One of the most highly-anticipated video game adaptations is arriving mid-month. Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan has presented the series adaptation of Fallout, set to stream on Prime Video on April 11th. The series was first announced in 2020, set in post-apocalyptic US. Survivors are desperately trying to rebuild and salvage some semblance of civilization, while the barren wasteland of America is marked by radiation, mutated creatures and unfriendly encounters around every corner. All episodes of the first season are being released at once.

• The Sympathizer

  A Pulitzer Prize-winner for Fiction, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen tells the story of a double agent in the wake of the Vietnam War. Max will begin streaming the HBO adaption of the political spy thriller. Set during the culmination of the Vietnam War in 1975, a French-Vietnamese spy (played by Australian Hoa Xuande), has infiltrated the South Vietnamese army but is forced to flee to the US as a refugee once the South falls. Xuande’s character must then decide between his loyalties to his political beliefs and his loyalties to his adopted community – which he continues to spy on. Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Oh also make appearances in the series, which drops on Max on April 14.

• Under the Bridge

  Based on the best-selling 1997 true-crime book of the same name by the late Rebecca Godfrey, the series follows the story of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta), who went to join friends at a party and never returned home. Through the eyes of Godfrey (Riley Keough) and a local police officer (Lily Gladstone), the mini-series takes us into the hidden world of the young girls accused of the murder — revealing startling truths about the unlikely killer. Under the Bridge will premiere on Hulu on April 17.

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Author John Patrick

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