Why we should all keep busy doing . . . nothing!

ANOTHER year, another acronym. Just when we’d come to terms with FOMO — the stress caused by the Fear Of Missing Out — we learn that Millennials are embracing JOMO. Joy Of Missing Out.

According to a UK-wide survey of 2,200 young adults, more than three- quarters are increasingly eschewing frenetic lifestyles — the need to go out and do things — in favour of spending time alone, either engaged in simple activities or simply doing nothing.

More than half of survey respondents say that time on their own is important to their happiness.

Before you roll your eyes and turn the page, bear with me. Millennials come in for a bit of stick (sometimes deservedly so) and have been branded as self- obsessed and hyper-sensitive, but I think they’re onto something here.

Of course, life is for living, but the pace of it can put so many demands on us that we end up with non-stop work, family and social schedules. If we’re not busy, busy, busy reading the books, seeing the films and watching the box sets everyone is talking about, going to the latest exhibitions, working out, spending time with our partners and/or children, and generally filling our diaries and posting our experiences on social media, then we’re not really living.

Except, in reality, life is passing us by, of course.

JOMO is a celebration of, well, being a bit boring. It’s a big thumbs down to the belief that we should always be doing something, just because everyone else is.

And there is certainly joy in that realisation. It’s perfectly fine to sit at home practising the art of doing nothing well, staring into space and letting your brain roam free.

Sometimes, the smallest things can give us the greatest pleasure. One of my favourite things in life — and I really mean this — is going to a DIY store or a garden centre.

There’s a Homebase near my hospital and I frequently divert there after work when I need to wind down after a stressful day. I get immense pleasure from wandering the aisles looking at power tools I’ll never use, at birdfeeders and fence panels I’ll never buy and shrubs I’ll never plant (I don’t even have a flowerbed), but imagining the DIY I’d love to do and the garden I’d design.

FOR

me, it’s a gentle meditation in which I’m surrounded by lawnmowers and stackable storage boxes rather than candles and incense, and I can easily spend two hours there.

And at home, I make time to sit and do absolutely nothing. It takes self-discipline and practice to get this right, but it’s worth the effort.

The reward is a deep night’s sleep and renewed mental energy and creativity the next day. My best thinking about important issues and problems is done when they are not foremost in my mind.

It’s good for us, too, to have to spend time alone. Too many people jam-pack their days as a way of avoiding exactly this, of having to confront aspects of their lives and personality that they don’t like and know they need to change.

If you don’t enjoy being with yourself, how can you expect other people to enjoy your company?

Ironically, by spending time alone, you can properly reflect on your life and relationships and develop new strategies to improve them.

In the course of my work, I’ve noticed that those who are at greatest peace with themselves are the people who make time to be alone and who don’t feel under pressure to conform. They found the secret of JOMO long before it became a trendy acronym.

The Welsh poet William Henry Davies, who spent part of his life as a tramp with plenty of time on his hands, sums it up best: ‘A poor life this if, full of care / We have no time to stand and stare.’