My favorite kinds of vacations are where I can sit by water (a pool or a beach or a lake) and read and also nap, and for years I’ve felt like I’m wasting time and I should be *doing* things, but that’s what I enjoy! Why should I feel guilty? And you’re right, even taking the night off to watch tv is seen as lazy even though I worked all day and it’s okay to take time to rest my brain and not be *productive*. I’m so tired of the hustle culture and hope more and more we all start to lean away from it!
I've lived in Paris for 12 years and as the world is opening up again, it's incredible to see a stream of folks from the USA coming over here and realizing that you're allowed to sit and drink coffee for a whole two hours on any given day of the week, and not feel like a lazy piece of shit because of it. Thanks for your post, and for this space. Reminds me of a great quote at the end of James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room," when the Italian lover tells the American exactly what's up:
“The Americans are funny. You have a funny sense of time—or perhaps you have no sense of time at all, I can’t tell. […] as though with enough time and all that fearful energy and virtue you people have, everything will be settled, solved, put in its place. And when I say everything,” he added, grimly, “I mean all the serious, dreadful things, like pain and death and love, in which you Americans do not believe.”
This is exactly what I needed to hear after a long week of work, looking ahead at a weekend of obligations. I can’t remember the last time I was able to truly rest and turn off my work brain. I gotta remedy that.
My favorite kinds of vacations are where I can sit by water (a pool or a beach or a lake) and read and also nap, and for years I’ve felt like I’m wasting time and I should be *doing* things, but that’s what I enjoy! Why should I feel guilty? And you’re right, even taking the night off to watch tv is seen as lazy even though I worked all day and it’s okay to take time to rest my brain and not be *productive*. I’m so tired of the hustle culture and hope more and more we all start to lean away from it!
I've lived in Paris for 12 years and as the world is opening up again, it's incredible to see a stream of folks from the USA coming over here and realizing that you're allowed to sit and drink coffee for a whole two hours on any given day of the week, and not feel like a lazy piece of shit because of it. Thanks for your post, and for this space. Reminds me of a great quote at the end of James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room," when the Italian lover tells the American exactly what's up:
“The Americans are funny. You have a funny sense of time—or perhaps you have no sense of time at all, I can’t tell. […] as though with enough time and all that fearful energy and virtue you people have, everything will be settled, solved, put in its place. And when I say everything,” he added, grimly, “I mean all the serious, dreadful things, like pain and death and love, in which you Americans do not believe.”
This is exactly what I needed to hear after a long week of work, looking ahead at a weekend of obligations. I can’t remember the last time I was able to truly rest and turn off my work brain. I gotta remedy that.