Dolce far Niente – The sweetness of doing Nothing! #BlogchatterAtoZ

This post is a part of A-Z Challenge for bloggers, that takes place every year in the month of April. Bloggers take part in this challenge for self-improvement and to overcome the “writer’s block”. Each one of us writes one article every day, starting from the alphabet ‘A’, right up to ‘Z’. My theme for this year’s challenge is – “Life Philosophies round the World”.

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The Italian phrase, “Dolce far niente”, literally translates to “sweet doing nothing” which means, “the sweetness of doing nothing.”

Dolce far niente is another interesting concept, very similar to Aylyak life philosopy that I talked about earlier. Since we’ve already read about what “doing nothing” actually means under the philosophy, I’d like to talk about how to do “nothing” in order to feel rejuvenated. “Doing nothing” does not mean being lazy, it refers to the pleasure one can gets from being idle.

This Italian style of living found popularity from the book and movie Eat Pray Love (2010). In a scene where the characters are in a barber shop, the American character feels guilty and berates herself of having done nothing the entire three weeks she stayed in Rome, apart from eating and learning a few Italian words. That’s when one of her Italian companion retorts by saying, “You don’t know how to enjoy yourself…” . While the other goes on to describe the concept of dolce far niente – the sweetness of doing nothing and he claims Italians “are masters of it”.

How to do “nothing” and feel pleasurable?

Disconnect from social media as getting lost online drains one’s energy and results in waste of time. If staying away from social media for an entire day seems impossible, start with switching off the internet an hour before you go to bed and connect an hour later after you wake up. Utilize that time to spend with yourself before you fall asleep and enjoy that morning tea without the iPad.

Stop feeling guilty of getting less done or getting “nothing” done! Yes! We live in a society where we often measure the productivity of our day by how much we got done and how much we accomplished. Get rid of the guilt of not being able to tick everything off your “to-do list”. This will help one enjoy the things that did get done and give oneself a pat on the back.

Because it’s not about how many tasks you got done, it’s about how you felt while doing the tasks. SO, STOP FEELING GUILTY OF GETTING LESS OR NOTHING DONE.

Have a day of rest for yourself. Make this an important ritual of having a day of doing nothing, be it Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Take a nap, skip the chores, ignore emails, practice a hobby, enjoy with the family, and savor the day. Take a day off to relax, discover and charge yourself. These quiet moments spent without worrying about the world will help in healing and hence rejuvenating.

Don’t wait to unwind and relax until you take your next vacation, instead make your day-to-day life relaxed and carefree with these small steps towards reducing overall stress levels and appreciating simple moments and things in life.

You may read about other such mind and soul evoking philosophies here.

This post is part of #BlogchatterAtoZ challenge 2021.

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