How to be Successful by Being Lazy

This is not a blog that will tell you how to get rich in three easy steps and then ask you to pay $499 after offering half of step one. Nor is it a blog that will tell you how to make hundreds with a few clicks on your laptop right from the comfort of your sofa. In fact, it doesn't even really tell you how to be successful by being lazy, per se, but it does tell you how taking a break from progress can actually lead to more progress itself.

You see, last week I was feeling a bit stressed, so I took a stroll outside. No phone. No earbuds. No agenda. This walk was supposed to clear my mind and help me step away from the incessant daily activities that required my attention. The break turned out to be beneficial for relieving stress, but it went beyond that. While I walked, I realized how loud the rustling of the trees was. For some reason, the sound imbued in me such a strong feeling of summer.

Why? I realized that in the winter, the wind blows straight through the denuded trees. Only in summer, when the branches are full of half a million leaves, do the trees really quake with the wind. Only then do they sound as if they’re whispering ancient secrets.

Via Getty Images

A small revelation, perhaps, but important for a writer like myself. Details make all the difference in a mundane composition versus one that is truly captivating. With this fresh insight, I wrote the next scene in my new novel, which, unsurprisingly, described trees. But this scene suddenly came to life. I’d actually been out in the trees, listening to them talk. I’d seen the shape of their leaves and the patterns in their bark, and I’d smelled the sap dripping down the eastern white pines. I could write truthfully about them, and it happened by accident.

How does this possibly relate to you? The point, however distant it might seem, is that society is so focused on progress that we lose moments of serenity. Every second we feel like we must accomplish something. Idleness is laziness. But that is not always so. I write this as a reminder to get up from the computer and take a breath. Let go of the anxiety that plagues you because you’re not accomplishing something, and walk out into the world.

You never know. These moments of “indolence” might end up being the most productive minutes in your day.