I’m currently slouched on my sofa, staring at a teacup stain on the side table that looks, depending on my mood, either like Sri Lanka or a chubby penguin with commitment issues. Overhead, the fan creaks like it’s narrating a slow-burn suspense thriller, and somewhere outside, a cuckoo is rehearsing for a performance it clearly thinks is Grammy-worthy. This, dear reader, is what I call “doing absolutely nothing.”

Don’t scoff. This isn’t laziness. This is strategic stillness. It’s the rebellion of the over-stimulated. These days, if you’re not building your personal brand, achieving inbox zero, and meal-prepping quinoa-turmeric power bowls, you’re basically committing social heresy. So my decision to sit motionless with a cup of chai? It’s practically activism.

Case in point: the other day, my neighbour spotted me on the balcony, tea in hand, gazing at absolutely nothing. “What are you doing?” she asked, with the suspicion usually reserved for people growing suspiciously tall herbs or tending to caged, endangered animals in their backyard. “Nothing,” I said, cheerfully. She blinked, confused. “But…why?” We’ve basically been raised to believe that doing “nothing” is a crime, like sitting idle and not studying to top the class, was as scandalous as robbing a bank in broad daylight.
Ah, the eternal question. Why choose stillness in a world where every minute must justify its existence with an outcome, a billable hour, or a step count? Because, my friends, nothing is severely underrated. In that chai-scented pause, I watched sunlight turn leaves into gold. A squirrel executed a gravity-defying leap that would’ve made a Cirque du Soleil acrobat weep. And somewhere between one breath and the next, my mind, usually a crowded WhatsApp group of thoughts, finally muted itself. Bliss.

Modern wellness culture likes to call this ‘mindfulness’, which is just a more Instagrammable term for sitting around doing not much. I’ve tried it in the kitchen, while washing dishes: feeling the warm water, the soap bubbles, the slow realization that life is really just a cycle of scrubbing the same plate over and over. There’s a metaphor there, somewhere between the spoons and the soggy sponge.
Doing nothing also means dropping unrealistic expectations like a bad Zoom connection. For example, the belief that I must cook three-course meals nightly. I now embrace my inner culinary anarchist. Some evenings, dinner is just buttered toast with a boiled egg that may or may not have personality. It’s not MasterChef, it’s minimalist survival.

Last month, I decluttered not just my wardrobe, but my mental to-do list. Out went the guilt about half-read novels, forgotten birthday wishes, and the idea that I’d someday speak fluent Hindi. How does it matter if I just speak the language without inhibitions or fear of being laughed at? The hustle has to pause at some point, just punctuate your life with a comma once a week. Like John Lubbock opined, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass… listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.”

Such is life. Or as I like to call it, mental spring cleaning without the hay fever. Even my twenty-year-old has started to see the wisdom in idle moments-which he refers to as the “Idle Ideal”. The other night, he flopped on the bed beside me, phone abandoned, and said, “Let’s just lie here and not do anything.” So we did. We stared at the ceiling, made up backstories for the cracks, and shared a silence deeper than most parental lectures. It was oddly magical, and far cheaper than family therapy.

Here’s the great twist: doing nothing actually helps me do everything else better. My best ideas have come while I’m mid-loaf, like realizing that muri (puffed rice) and bhujiya is the unsung power couple of the snack world. I’m also noticeably less snappy, which is saying a lot for someone still fighting with her socks in the morning.
And you know what? I’ve stopped chasing Pinterest-level perfection. My home is lived in and cosy, not showroom-ready. My to-do list has more unchecked boxes than a low-turnout election ballot. But I’ve learned that life isn’t a productivity spreadsheet, it’s a beautiful, bumbling mess best experienced one slow sip of tea at a time.

So here’s my unsolicited advice: every now and then, ditch the pressure to “optimize” yourself. Close your planner, ignore that chirpy productivity reel, and just sit. Let your brain untangle itself. Stare at a stain and decide whether it looks like Sri Lanka, a penguin, or the Indian Parliament after a heated session. Because sometimes, doing nothing is the most revolutionary, restorative thing you can do. And no, you don’t need a dog for that. Just a sofa, a cup of tea, and the courage to be gloriously, wonderfully still.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… including you.”

Anne Lamott

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