“Pizzaonia Emerging” Courtesy of the Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, Curator
The problem we face today is trying to recover the lost art of “doing nothing well.” Make no mistake; this is a “lost art form.”
The first hurdle to overcome is defining just what we mean by “doing nothing well.” This is harder than you might expect. One reason for this is that the few people who “do nothing well” usually don’t know they are doing nothing, much less that they are doing it well with finesse and gusto.
Not sure? Think for a moment. We have all seen at our various places of work people who spend the whole day doing nothing well. The problem is that no one knows this including the person we are describing. Even so, when the day is over, we scratch our heads trying to think of what they did all day.
This is particularly vexing for bosses and supervisors.
However, I really don’t want to spend too much time with this highly specialized and perversely talented group. They will continue to astound us with their efficient inefficiency, continue to be promoted, and probably end up being your boss.
I would like to concentrate on the rest of us. Recently, I mentioned to a group of friends that we no longer were very good at doing nothing well. The response was interesting because most believed they were very good at it. Then came the problem: I asked them to define “doing nothing well.” Silence – after all nothing is nothing much less doing it skillfully, and describing it is difficult. And if you don’t know what it is, how do you know you are doing it?
A major problem is the word itself – nothing. Self-help books have been dealing with this for years. No one is going to buy a book that teaches them to do nothing well. So a new jargon had to be invented. Fulfillment, meaningful, bliss, contentment, meditative and so on and so on – you get the idea. What is left unsaid is that they are all euphemisms for doing nothing well.
So let’s start. We are going to gather a special committee here at the Pizzaonian Institute to define clearly what we mean by “doing nothing well.’ I would hope you would try to do the same. Let us know what you come up with.
One tip I am going to pass on to the committee: You will never justify or motivate people to do nothing well unless you can show them what they will gain from their efforts. Everything has to be justified, including doing nothing. Why else did we invent weekend fishing?
Until next time….
Brother Giovanni
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