I saw the movie "Eat pray love" recently and the phrase "the sweetness of doing nothing" in that one caught my attention. When Liz (the main character in the film) is in Italy, an Italian man says, in Italy they enjoy the sweetness of doing nothing.
I think it really makes sense. Doing nothing is also pleasurable and sweet. Enjoying life also means enjoying those moments when we do not seem to be doing anything apparent. We are so much caught up in this game of "doing" - doing something to define our very life, doing something for a specific purpose, doing some meaningful activity (means, one that provides something material) each moment, etc. For many of us, not doing anything is taken as not living life at all - we seem quite uncomfortable at the thought of just being at a point of time without doing any apparent "activity". But, in the end, do we enjoy these activities we "do" and indirectly life? or do we get stressed out in the "doing" and also in the planning of that "doing"?
I am not suggesting that not doing anything means just being lazy. I am just saying that there is pleasure in so called "do nothings" such as, simply sitting in a sea shore and gazing into the horizon for a long time, simply looking at the fishes moving around in a pond, walking in the woods gaping at nature, or simply letting ourselves just "be". According to me, those moments are among the moments that make us feel we are "living" life.
