'Che dolce far niente'

'Che dolce far niente'.

Confession: I'd never heard of this lovely phrase - which translates in English to 'how pleasant it is to do nothing' - until this week when an English friend, vacationing in Italy, sent it to to me.

Don't you find that 'to do nothing' is hard to do?

After decades of work in the corporate world, I still feel guilty when I take in a movie on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Heck, I feel guilty watching TV any time before 5.30 when the BBC news is up.

I'm writing this piece because I would feel guilty if I didn't.

Perhaps, like me, you've devoted at least one day a week to be 'digi-free'. For me, that day is Sunday, once a day of rest. Key people know they can reach me by phone or What'sApp, if there's an emergency. Otherwise, I stay off anything carried by the Internet. Result: a potent sense of relief.

Thousands of Americans watch the Sunday talk shows, listening to a bunch of, mostly, self-serving narcissists, aka politicians. For me, that can't compete with drifting in a kayak on some salt marsh lagoon as a V of geese soars south.

The deep pleasure of doing nothing allows us to live fully in the present. Children do that when they play. Sure they're 'doing' but they allow themselves to be in the moment as they 'do'. We did it when we were very young. After that, the daily world, aka the Internet, hijacks us and we start - horrid phrase - 'going forward' to some imagined future which is never like what we imagined it to be. In that sense, the future is a hoax. We should all wise up to that.

A couple of days ago, I saw this guy - see above - sitting on the beach. He was fishing, or at least he was pretending to fish. But really, he was taking in the sweetness of the moment of doing nothing. I shared his sense of wellbeing because I, too, was doing nothing, except watching him doing nothing.

You're at your desk, staring out the window. The boss looks in. Startled, you swivel back to your screen. A wise boss would say - as mine once did - 'Stop. Look out the window again. Think. We pay you for that, too'.

Do nothing. As the Kodak ads used to say, 'It's the gift that keeps on giving'.