Chapter Ten: A Lazy Saturday (~jinghan)
I had a week of death: a presentation on Saturday (with a 6:30am rise), midterm on Monday, another presentation on Thursday, another midterm on Friday. And as a new obligation-free Saturday rolls around I’m looking forward to making up for the (lack of) hours of sleep I’ve been anxiously counting all week. I fantasise about my gloriously lazy Saturday that I will have.
Actually I wake up at 7am on Saturday to the sound of the clicking of the front door. I ignore it at first but then when the sound persisted I get up to check that my housemate hadn’t locked herself in or out of the house. (She had something important she was doing that day and I didn’t want her to miss out.)
Everything was fine and I went back to bed. I glance at the time and I count the house of sleep I’ve gotten: six. Not enough to cover a big sleep debt. The church group had arranged to do a cleanup of the Arboretum (botanical garden) starting at 10am… did I want to set my alarm to 9am so that I could join them… or do I leave it unset?
I leave it unset.
It’s 11am by the time I wake up again. And I don’t have enough time to make it worth going to the Arboretum… And to be honest I had sort of wanted the “morning” to myself anyway…
I spend the day pottering around the house. I half-heartedly vacuum. Clean the kitchen a little. Contemplate studying… by the time the sun sets I’m feeling rather down on myself. What have I done with my day? I’ve been inside by myself all day. I feel like I’ve done nothing worthwhile. And I really miss being back home where Saturdays would be full of people and family and commitments. So much for gloriously lazy. I feel really worthless.
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A week later I am reading The Good Life by Charles Colson who was involved in the Watergate political scandal and later became Christian and developed Prison Fellowship that serves inmates and their family. In his book challenges his readers to think critically about what society at large regards as “The Good Life” (parties, money, fame, possessions…) and to think about what really makes life good (human dignity, community, living for others, morality…)
Here is the chapter that struck me:
Chapter 8: A Life of Significance
I confessed earlier that when I was in prison, my greatest fear was that I would never be able to live a life of significance again. I’ve always been idealistic. What drew me to politics was not just power but the chance to fulfill my lifelong idealism. […] I wanted to do something worthwhile for my country. My job at the White House represented not just personal gratification but a chance to make people’s lives better.
My anxiety in prison, I see now, stemmed from confusing power and face with significance. Living a life of significance does not depend on the prerogatives that belong to high position; it depends even less on others’ esteem and praise. Living a meaningful life consists simply in embracing the responsibilities and work given to us, whatever they are. […] There is intrinsic meaning to work well done – and when we fail to grasp this, we become hollow persons.
I had to deal with this in prison, when I had nothing to do but the most menial tasks I was assigned. […] So following Bonhoeffer’s* example, I drove myself to work as hard as I could. My entire day was consumed with writing study, doing my job in the prison laundry, exercising, and helping other inmates. I seldom allowed myself any recreation. More than anything, I feared doing nothing.
[…]
I could see that the empty hours sucked the life out of many inmates. […] Those who didn’t have work assignments would spend most of their days on their bunks, half-dazed, trying to escape into the emptiness of their thoughts. They were sleeping their lives away, literally.
[…]
Day in and day out we are taught that work is a neccessary evil and that leisure – the freedom from labor and productivity – is the great goal of the consumerist society. But inside we know that leisure in itself simply doesn’t satisfy. If our nature desires dignity and self-respect, those need can be satisfied only when we discover our purpose, which will embrace our work and our responsibilities.
As I read all this I saw my Saturday self like those inmates who were sleeping away their lives. The picture of someone in prison – lacking many of the stimulating things I come across from being a university student on exchange – putting their mind to working hard and depending on their own self-will to seek stimulation was inspiring. I planned my next Saturday carefully and enjoyed how much I got done.
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But like many things it’s easier to say than to do. This week I came out of my Saturday with that same feeling of stuffiness that comes with worthlessly spending time by myself for a morning and not really doing any of the things I had been hoping to do. I’m feeling more clueless as to what I should do with these lonely Saturdays of mine than before…
Funny how I’ve started looking forward to week days and dreading Saturdays – exactly the opposite of the ways of thinking I’ve had in the past!
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