The Radical Art of Being Useless

I have many clients who cannot be still.
If they’re not writing an email, they’re cleaning the kitchen. If they’re not cooking dinner, they’re signing up for a marathon. It’s as if every minute must be packed, accounted for, turned into something “productive.”

And usually — they are women.

I almost imagine this to an absurd:
A woman takes a cotton pad, splits it in half, uses one half on her face, and then — instead of throwing it away — wipes the sink, then the mirror, and then, walking backwards, mops the whole floor all the way to the kitchen.

Every second. Every object. Every gesture must have a purpose.

But what happens when there’s no space left for her?

Behind this compulsion to be constantly “useful” often hide deep-rooted patterns:

• The inner commandment — “If I don’t help, I’m bad.” A belief formed in childhood to be the “good, convenient” child.
• Unmet need for love — If love wasn’t freely given in childhood, you might try to earn it by endlessly helping others.
• Projection — Caring for others instead of yourself, as if solving their needs will somehow fill your own.
• Fear of being without resources — “I must be useful, so that when I’m in trouble, someone will help me.”
• Boosting self-worth — Helping can make you feel “bigger” or more important than you secretly believe yourself to be.
• Control and manipulation — Making others indebted so you can manage relationships on your terms.
• A sense of debt — “I owe it to them,” and the endless attempt to restore some invisible balance.

Even when it’s not about pleasing people, there’s another silent driver:
We’ve built a culture where stillness feels wrong. Where there’s no time to pause, reflect, or digest.

This relentless race is not always about efficiency — sometimes, it’s about avoidance.

If we strip away the busywork, what remains?

For some, stillness is unbearable because it exposes something raw — a deep dissatisfaction, or even depression.

In this way, the constant activity is like putting furniture over a hole in the floor: if you move it, you might have to look into the emptiness.

And here’s the existential twist: our fear of doing “nothing” is often a fear of being with ourselves — and, ultimately, a fear of death.

To stop means to meet yourself. Your thoughts. Your feelings. Your limits. And sometimes, that’s terrifying.

Becoming useless — even for a moment — is not about wasting time.
It’s about reclaiming it.

It’s about learning to exist without earning your right to rest.
It’s about building a relationship with yourself that doesn’t depend on how much you produce, serve, or manage.

Because until you can sit with yourself in stillness, you’ll never truly know what you want — only what you can do.

And stillness isn’t enough — we also need boredom.

Not the kind that makes you grab your phone, but the kind that stretches out, uncomfortable at first, until something shifts inside.

It’s in these “empty” hours that ideas ripen, new desires emerge, and the inner creator wakes up.

We also need time for things that are gloriously, unapologetically useless. Things done purely for joy, without asking, “How can I monetize this?” or “What’s the benefit?”

Recently I returned to my old hobbies and decided to make flower candles. I don’t know anything more “pointless”: it takes 5–6 hours to craft a delicate wax blossom that will melt away in two. But in the process, my mind is quiet, my hands are busy, and I feel an unexplainable calm. The candle may disappear — but the rest I get while making it stays with me.

And the same applies to your family.
Let them have their “lazy” moments. Maybe you remember your mom shouting, “Don’t just lie there — do something useful!” We often carry that phrase into our own families, passing it down like an heirloom no one really wanted.

But often they’re not lazy at all (though, let’s be honest, sometimes that happens too 🙂). Children, partners, even the busiest men you know — during those stretches of stillness — are digesting experiences, making sense of the world, and quietly doing the most important work for the psyche.

Therapy or coaching can become that rare space where you’re both doing and not-doing at the same time — learning to sit with yourself, to notice, to breathe. And then, slowly and steadily, you can bring this skill back into your everyday life, until stillness no longer feels like a threat, but like home.