il Dolce Far Niente

The Sweetness of Doing Nothing

It’s that time of year in Arizona. Triple-digit temperatures force me to take my walks at a ridiculously early hour and schedule errands for the morning. I slather on sunscreen, wear a hat, guzzle water. The ‘dog days of summer’ drain my energy and force me inside for a good part of the day. I feel like doing nothing. Blah.

This goes against my nature. I like to stay busy. I’m a ‘producer’, one who makes things…you know: sew a garment, write a story, create a blog post. I’m schedule and routine oriented and not particularly good at “doing nothing.” So now what? The weather is out of my control. Maybe I need to change my attitude. The Italians have a saying:

il dolce far niente

In English it means “the sweetness of doing nothing,” but it sounds way better when you say it in Italian. Try it: eel dough-chay far nee-in-tay. Isn’t that beautiful?! Now say it with an Italian flair. Bonus points if you come up with hand gestures to go with it.

Il dolce far niente isn’t about laziness, but rather it refers to enjoying relaxing moments without a specific purpose or goal, finding contentment in simple activities, slowing down to appreciate the small joys in life. Though not a new idea, the term has been popular in social media circles lately, perhaps as a result of our increasingly fast-paced, crisis-mode-world we find ourselves in these days.

Benefits of il dolce far niente include:

• reduced stress and anxiety
• enhanced creativity
• improved mental clarity
• deeper self-awareness
• new perspectives

Who wouldn’t want this,

But how?

The planner in me wants to immediately make a list, schedule times to relax, research activities (actually, that’s what I did when composing this post). But stop! Doesn’t doing something so I can start doing nothing kinda go against the philosophy here?

Maybe the place for me to start is to shift my mindset around productivity, taking moments in my day to daydream, breathe, pick up the guitar I haven’t used in decades and strum a few chords, enjoy that cup of tea without rushing on to the next item on my “to do” list.

And as for my writing life:

I’m working on finishing the rough draft of my next story and, of course the producer in me wants to see this through the editing, revisions, formatting, publishing. It’s a lot. Yet perhaps, the best thing I can do for my writing is to step away from it from time to time for some dolce far niente moments.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to click “publish” and and do nothing, nothing at all. Sweet.