THAT'S LIFE: The sacredness of doing nothing

Today, if we send an email or Whatsapp message and don’t get a response within an hour, we get antsy. We have shortened the growing times on most crops and the chicken we eat is grown in three months. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • As she aged, Mrs Busy-Busy slowed down but I can sometimes see the frustration on her face when she spots an untidy corner in her house but lacks the energy to clean it herself. 
  • My mother, like many African mothers, was no different. She worked a full day’s job, cooked almost daily and found time to run a side business.
  • She was always up and about, and if I ever found her seated on the sofa, I would ask if she was unwell.

There are some things that your children learn best from other people. If you have lectured until you are blue in the face, then it is time to turn them over to another adult. Of course, you will need to have pre-briefed your friendly adult. It is also best to make the conversation seem as natural and unplanned as possible. You will see your children listening and actually nodding. With any luck, they might actually retain some of what they are hearing.

It’s a strategy I learned from my mother. Every so often, when she wanted to drum the importance of industriousness to me, she would send me to her aunt during the school holidays. This woman had such a reputation for hard-work and keeping a spotless home that we nick-named her Mrs Busy-Busy.

She just did not know how to relax. My mother hoped, and I believe, prayed it would rub off on me. Early in the morning, Mrs Busy-Busy would wake us up with, “It’s already 4:00am, what are you doing still in bed? Are you unwell?!” And from then on, until sun down, we were cooking and cleaning and then cooking and cleaning some more.

Mrs Busy-Busy never liked to see you sit down even for a moment. She would ask, “You are seating down? What?! Is there nothing else to do?” She would then look around the house and sure enough, find something that needed tidying. I eventually got the drill. Sitting idle, doing nothing, was wrong and only for ill or lazy people. It was best to get doing, because there is always something that needs doing!

As she aged, Mrs Busy-Busy slowed down but I can sometimes see the frustration on her face when she spots an untidy corner in her house but lacks the energy to clean it herself. 

MY MOTHER WAS NO DIFFERENT

My mother, like many African mothers, was no different. She worked a full day’s job, cooked almost daily and found time to run a side business. She was always up and about, and if I ever found her seated on the sofa, I would ask if she was unwell. The women in my life taught me the value of doing, and what they didn’t teach, I caught. Which is why I sometimes find myself over-scheduling, filling every waking moment with activity. And it is no different with my friends. When we get together, we are always trying to regale each other with tales of our busy lives, secretly trying to outdo each other for the ‘busiest’ tag. I suppose if you are busy, it must mean you are doing something important with your life.

This isn’t just something our parents taught us either. The world, it seems, is revolving even faster. It used to be that you could write a letter and wait weeks for a response on snail mail.

Today, if we send an email or Whatsapp message and don’t get a response within an hour, we get antsy. We have shortened the growing times on most crops and the chicken we eat is grown in three months. We hope that all the apps we download and all the technology we invest in, will help us to have more time. More time to do more. We are all in an incredible hurry to get somewhere or do something yesterday.

Yet the effects of all our busyness are telling. I can’t help but think how high the cost of busyness is when I visit a friend hospitalised with high blood pressure, a stroke or extreme fatigue. I always leave with a promise to slow down. Problem is, like my mother and Mrs Busy-Busy, I don’t know how. And then a friend returned from a trip to Israel and talked to me about how dogmatic they are about keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest. For most of us, our Saturday’s and Sundays are about catching up on what we didn’t fit into the week. So much so that we get to Monday tired and depressed.

However, far from being a terrible evil, resting on the Sabbath has divine example. It is even a commandment. So take rest every Sabbath and discover the holiness of doing nothing. Remember, it pleases God and keeps you refreshed.