Resign yourselves to enjoy those pockets of lazy cheer

Country Living with Francis Farragher

There are few of us country boys who could field any insult bar that of laziness. Yet, the more I browse through studies about taking things a bit easier, the more I realise that if we could all work  a measure of lazy time into our lives, it would probably help us all to relax a bit more.

We all love to have the regular moan about hard we work . . . how we cannot keep it all done . . . and what’s all this rushing and racing about. The lazy lobby do have a point, mind you, in that if you cannot box off an hour or two each day, or a couple of days in each week, for your own time, then the balance on the scales of life is not quite correct.

Being from a generation where the word holidays only related to being off from school and being available for all types of farm and bog work, it was something of a shock to the systems over three decades ago when the first sun holiday was embarked upon.

A fortnight of sun and sand in far away Cyprus in the heart of the Mediterranean, seemed at face value, to offer an unbridled two weeks of bliss with nothing to do only stretching out in the sun like a lazy Labrador on a July day.

Alas the reality after about the second or third day of this holiday was that being in an unfamiliar place with absolutely nothing to do, did not add up to anything barely resembling happiness. In a strange environment of heat, dust and a parched landscape, the reality of perpetual idlenesss was not a state-of-mind that brought me any modicum of contentment.

Anyway, that first holiday was probably saved from a severe dose of vacation depression by a three-day trip to Israel where at least there was mind activity and a trip back into history. After that though, so called sun holidays were to be treated with a bit of caution with some activity diary always having to be prepared in advance of the vacation.

A synonym for laziness is sloth and of course that latter word pops in the list of The Seven Deadly Sins from early Christian teachings, taking its dishonourable place beside pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony and wrath. Is it then really any wonder given our Catholic upbringings that we can start to feel pangs of remorse on a Winter’s evening if one pans out on the recliner and slips into the world of dreams for an hour or so.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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