Do something absolutely useless

We’ve been brainwashed into thinking our time needs to be somehow “valuable” or “productive”. Each hour and minute is to, somehow, be utilized. We can’t just waste away a Sunday because we could be exercising, or doing laundry, or whatever. 

We can’t just be carving a piece of wood for fun or to pass time. No, we must make something useful out of it, or document it for Instagram/Twitter, or sell the end product or information, to monetize the hobby. 

You find that there’s always an end goal for things these days. How many things do you do “just because” anymore? We don't just go for a walk, we go to get our 10k steps!

Do something absolutely useless today. Something you can’t count as exercise. You can’t count it as a chore. It’s not on any to-do list. Just something like sitting on a public bench. It feels bad, right? You feel like you’re lazy or stupid or unproductive. The worse you feel, the more you’ve been brainwashed.

Remove some of this brainwashing by making it a ritual to do something useless, as frequently as you can. Make every Sunday evening your “I’m going to be an utterly unproductive member of society” time, then extend it to the entire day. Perhaps this is easiest when you have a child (in fact, those lazy Sundays might just become their most treasured memories).