Just as I was stressing about how I was too busy to write this blog post during a short holiday workweek, I came across this terrific essay about “the busy trap” on the New York Time’s Opinionator blog. Author Tim Kreider’s revelations about the problematic rise of a “we’re-too-busy” culture rings so true, especially among these lazy days of summer.

Here, one takeaway I’ll remember when I’m trying to justify skipping my nightly email check to watch one more Elmo video with my toddler, or trying to go more than a few hours before checking the Facebook app on my iPhone:

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.

Such a good argument for the new vitamin D—downtime.

Tell us what you think: Are you “too busy” for your own good? Also, if you can spare the time, check out the essay’s 750+ comments; some great food for thought there too.

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