“Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, “An Apology for Idlers,” Virginibus Puerisque (1881)
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this in his twenties, years before Treasure Island, in a cheeky little essay called “An Apology for Idlers.” A kirk is a church, and “catholic” here just means wide-ranging. Put in plain words: being frantically busy everywhere you go is a sign something is running low, and being able to sit still means you have a big appetite for life and a solid sense of who you are.
That flips the usual story. Most of us treat a packed calendar as proof that we matter. Stevenson suggests it can be the opposite. If the only time you feel alive is when you’re booked, you may have lost track of what you’d do with a free afternoon.
He describes people who are “scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation.” Take away the job, the errands, the group chat, and they don’t know what to do with themselves. That’s not a character flaw. It’s a muscle that hasn’t been used in a while.
Slow living isn’t about being lazy. It’s about getting that muscle back, so rest feels like yours instead of something you have to earn.
How to live it this week
Book one empty block. Pick a two-hour window this weekend and put it on the calendar with no title. Treat it like any other appointment you wouldn’t cancel.
Leave the phone in another room. The easiest way to stay “busy” is to scroll. Without it, you’ll find out what you actually reach for.
Follow whatever pulls at you. Walk somewhere without a destination. Read a few pages of something you never finished. Sit on the porch and watch the street. No goal, no tracking, no turning it into a project.
Notice the itch, then wait it out. Around the twenty-minute mark you’ll probably feel the urge to check something or fix something. That’s the busyness talking. Let it pass and see what comes after.
Afterward, write down one thing you enjoyed that you didn’t plan. That’s a small piece of the “strong sense of personal identity” Stevenson was talking about, and it’s worth protecting.
Want more lines like this? Browse our slow living quotes and the full list of simple living quotes, or read why there’s never enough time for nothing.
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