Busy Doing Nothing

Socrates said: Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Those Greeks knew a thing or two, didn’t they? When I don’t write – and there are far too many days when that happens – it’s never because I can’t think what to write about. I may be ‘blocked’ on one piece of work, but there’s always another one on the go that I can work on instead.

No, when I don’t write, it’s because I’m too busy doing other things: preparing for or taking part in Chudfest (our town’s ten-day festival); editing newsletters; meeting other writers for networking; cleaning the house – and so the list goes on. When I was at work, when I had a ‘proper job’, I would go to the office or factory, do my eight hours – and then the rest of the day was my own.

I need to think about writing as work. Then it would be my new ‘proper job’ and would take priority, be productive. After all, I have the best job in the world – why wouldn’t I want to turn up every day and just do it?

[And in case my husband or sisters are reading this – I lied about cleaning the house!]

The illustrated quotation is taken from Being in the Now, one of a new range of adult colouring books of mindfulness quotes, and is reproduced by kind permission of Luscious Books.

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By Elizabeth Ducie

Elizabeth Ducie was a successful international manufacturing consultant, when she decided to give it all up and start telling lies for a living instead.

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