Tag / automobile university

by Nathan Coumbe

Wash dishes. Fold laundry.

It’s the modern-day equivalent to “Chop Wood, Carry Water”. A way to find Zen in the mindless, repetitive tasks we must do each day.

Over and over again with no end in sight.

(There’s never an empty sink or laundry basket in my house. Ever.)

But I take them to be signs of life—a family going through the motions of good living.

Dirty dishes mean home-cooked meals and conversations at the dinner table.

Smelly laundry means people played outside, moved their bodies, and had fun.

And if finding Zen in those chores isn’t your thing, you can look at them as a chance to do something else.

Like connect with your kids over the dishwasher.

Or listen to your favorite album.

Or stay abreast of new developments in your industry.

Or practice your Spanish.

Wash dishes. Fold laundry.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Why you need leisure time

“All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.”

–Samuel Johnson

You’ve experienced it before: you’re scrubbing yourself in the shower and a million-dollar idea pops into your head, but by the time you get out it’s gone.

You’re driving down the highway, and your mind starts to wander; pretty soon you’ve concocted in your mind an entire business plan that could make you extremely successful. But alas, you’re driving – you have no way to write it all down.

A bored, quiet mind is a creative mind. Samuel Johnson said it well: “all intellectual improvement arises from leisure.” True leisure is something most of us haven’t experienced in 10 years – before the dawn of the always-on, always-connected smartphone culture.

We don’t know what leisure is anymore; we don’t know how to be bored anymore. Our first instinct when boredom strikes is to pick up the phone and scroll our favorite social media feeds. It preoccupies our minds and rids us of our boredom, but it also shuts off our creativity.

True leisure is allowing yourself to be bored, engaging with your thoughts, letting the mind wander or buzz absently. It’s going for a long walk at the park with no music and no podcasts.

If you want those truly life-changing, million-dollar ideas to come naturally and often, get really and truly bored. Do something on autopilot that puts you into the same mental state as showering or mindless driving.

Give your mind a chance to wander and watch the improvements come.