Idleness

Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.
Barrie Sir James

I've always beleived that there is nothing worse than boredom. When you have nothing to do you have nothing to feel. Depression sets in because we learn that we have no control over our situation. I still remember when I was pretty depressed my first year of university and my biology proffessor showed a film that was designed to make people angry about the persecution of wolves and how I indeed got very angry and made that clear to the proffessor but I felt wonderful because I could feel something even if it was just anger. And I could do something about it, even if it was just to voice my disapproval. (My proffessor and I got along very well after that)

We were designed to act, to learn about ourselves, to conquer obstacles, to reach goals. We are not meant for an easy life. When we are being idle, we are, in a very real way, not living. When we are idle, life has no meaning for us. It's like just plodding through a difficult task, as opposed to dancing in the rain. When we are idle, we have nothing to look forwards to. We know in our hearts that life is never going to get any better unless we do something to make it better.

We simply cannot be happy when we are idle. It often happens that the days that someone is struggling to reach success, when they are sleeping in their car and living on peanut butter and crackers, are the times they look back to as being the happiest times. Because they had a goal and they were busy doing something about it. We are happier living in miserable conditions and taking action than we are living in a palace and having nothing to do all day. When we are idle we are ill tempered and our frustration, resentment, and anger just creates trouble. Always make sure you have something to do, something to live for, something that makes you happy. Something to make your life worthwhile. Occasional rest is good and necessary, but idleness is a disaster waiting to happen.