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" Doing something you enjoy at times of your own choosing and making a living from it: now tell me, is that work? "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Enjoy
Doing
Related Quotes:
" Embrace the faff. Stare out of the window. Bend paperclips. Stand in the middle of the room trying to remember what you came downstairs for. Pace. Drum your fingertips. Move papers around. Hum. Look at the garden. "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Window
Stand
" Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Peace
Creative
Saying
" As the son of a feminist mother, I grew up with the idea that work was a sort of salvation for women as it would give them freedom from the domestic grind. Now it seems work is a form of slavery, undertaken out of apparent compulsion rather than choice. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Son
Grind
Mother
" To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter. "
Tom Hodgkinson
More
Me
Laughter
" One of the least arduous but most productive of gardening jobs, the magic of deadheading never fails to delight me. It was a revelation when the principle was explained to me: that flowers are the attempt by the plant to reproduce itself. So if you cut the heads off before the flower turns into seeds, the plant will continue to flower. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Flower
Gardening
Magic
" What is required as we travel towards full unemployment is not new legislation but a gradual change of mental attitude, a shift in values. As our taste for idling grows, we will refuse to work for old-fashioned bosses who demand a five-day, 40-hour, nine-to-five type week, or worse. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Change
Attitude
Travel
" When walking, you see things that you miss in a motor car or on the train. You give your mind space to ponder. "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Train
Car
" We can live frugally. The less you work, the less you spend and the more time you have for loafing about. But when I put forward this simple notion, I was greeted with a volley of resentment. "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Forward
Live
" I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find a culture where loafing is the order of the day and where they don't understand our need to be constantly doing things. Find somewhere you can have a hammock holiday. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Daily
Holiday
Day
" The reason laziness is rarely pushed as a lifestyle option is down to one simple reason: money. There are fortunes to be made out of active lifestyles. Gyms charge fees. But no one is going to make money out of sleep. It is free. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Free
Laziness
Money
" Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Life
Deep
Car
" Deleting 200 spams a day is a drag. And I was checking my email constantly, rather than getting on with my real work, which is reading and writing. Email was becoming a distraction, a burden rather than a liberation. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Writing
Day
Reading
" Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can take time out from the bustle and brouhaha of the city, and simply sit and watch and reflect. "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Time
Free
" Faffing, of course, does not fit the programme. We are supposed to be busy, productive citizens. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Productive
Supposed
Citizens
" Am I the only person in the world who is shocked and amazed at the ongoing flattery of uebergeek Mark Zuckerberg? "
Tom Hodgkinson
Mark
World
Who
" Although I played a lot of computer games in my 20s, now I have children of my own, I hate them with a passion. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Hate
Own
Passion
" Laziness works. And the simple way to incorporate its health benefits into your life is simply to take a nap. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Way
Laziness
Life
" Of all the depressing abuses of language in business, there is none that gets me so incensed as the rampant overuse of the word 'passionate' in company slogans, marketing blurbs, mission statements and on the sides of vans. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Me
Mission
Language
" Indolence, of course, is an absolutely crucial part of the creative process: you do not find poets sitting in rows in cavernous word factories, staring at screens. They are rather to be found lolling on the sofa or strolling through the groves, nursing their melancholic temperaments and losing themselves in extended reveries. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Process
You
Creative
" I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of public transport. Cycling is almost completely free. There is no longer any need for the gym as you get fit by cycling. And you can go at your own pace. "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Bike
Free
" I love the 19th-century idea of the flaneur, the poet wandering through the streets. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Love
Poet
Streets
" Punk was a protest against work and against boredom. It was a sign of life, a rant, a scream, a rejection of bourgeois morals. But have things improved since then? Arguably, they've got worse. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Boredom
Life
Morals
" Bosses should sanction the nap rather than expect workers to power on all day without repose. They might even find that workers' happiness - or what management types refer to as 'employee satisfaction results' - might improve. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Find
Happiness
Power
" Travelling fills me with dread. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Fills
Travelling
Me
" I originally welcomed the mobile phone, as it seemed to me that it would enable you to work from anywhere. On the mobile, who was to know if you were sitting on the branch of a tree or sitting in an office? But it instead had the opposite effect: instead of freeing us from the office, it allowed the office to take away our freedom. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Me
Work
Tree
" It's pretty obvious that Western lifestyles which rely on gigantic amounts of electricity use up far more resources than a subsistence-based life. A little more poverty would be a good thing. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Good
Life
Poverty
" Once you explore life outside of work, it becomes addictive. The less you work, the less you want to work. At first, the odd afternoon off seems like a fantastic luxury. Before long, you are opting for a four-day week. Then a four-day week becomes an intolerable demand on your time, so you find a way of moving to a three-day week. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Time
Work
Moving
" I've often said that far more sensible than a 'make poverty history' campaign would be a 'make wealth history' campaign. It is, after all, the wealthy people who do all the damage. The less money you earn, the fewer resources you use up. "
Tom Hodgkinson
You
Money
History
" In this age of getting what you want and getting it now, the simple pleasure of browsing is often forgotten. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Age
Want
Simple
" Working is bad enough in the winter, but in the summer it can become completely intolerable. Stuck in airless offices, every fibre of our being seems to cry out for freedom. We're reminded of being stuck in double maths while the birds sing outside. "
Tom Hodgkinson
Enough
Birds
Winter