In Praise of Doing Nothing

In Praise of Doing Nothing
by Andy Rine

Jerry Jeff Walker is a national treasure.   He’s a Gonzo troubadour, a singer-songwriter that I would put up against just about anyone.  Among my favorite songs of his is “The Pickup Truck Song,” where he describes three different phases of his life and how he always returns to a simple tradition of running errands on a Saturday and “never taking the same road twice on the way back home.” This has become somewhat of a tradition for me, whether my family likes it or not.

I despise inactivity.  I believe we were given a certain number of hours on this earth, and we should use as many as we can.  It drives my wife crazy.  I sleep as little as possible.  I overcaffeinate.  I used to sign up for everything and race from commitment to commitment, feeling guilty that I was always late and couldn’t fully contribute.  But that’s no way to live.

If you schedule your life wall to wall, you don’t leave any time for the little magic things to happen in he blank spaces in between.  It took having kids for me to realize that.  I still hate inactivity.  I remain active, but I carve out time for active non-doing.  I know I’ll be spending time with my family, but I don’t know what I’ll be doing.  This is when the magic happens.

What’s at the end of that road?  I don’t know; let’s go find out.

Did you hear that sound?  I wonder what kind of animal made it? Beats me; let’s go see.

I think fishing might be fun.  Let’s try it.

This has led to some of the best times we’ve had over the last 10 years.  My kids act as if they hate it.  Inevitably, the conversation goes like this on a Saturday morning:

Andy: Get off your iPad; we’re going somewhere.

Children: Where?

Andy: I don’t know; we’ll figure it out.

Children: NOOOOOOOO.

Andy: We always have fun.

Children: WHHHHYYYYY.

Andy: I’m not asking, I’m telling.

Children: NOOOOOOOO.

Andy: I’ll buy you something.

Children: OK.

Then we go, and they pout, and then we have a great time.  When we get home, I say, “Remember what a great time we had, and try to protest a little less next time.”  They always agree, but they never do.  It’s a vicious cycle.

But through this cycle, we have discovered that my son loves photography.  He rode along with me one morning in December, taking photos in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. One of those photos just won Best in Show at the Oklahoma State Fair.

My daughter loves to ride bikes, so we’ll often just find our way downtown and explore together. We have found cool places we wouldn’t know exist otherwise.

Save some time to do nothing because most of our best days started by taking a road we hadn’t taken before.