“Idlephobia”, a disease of current times

The word leisurephobia was invented by Rafael Santandreu, a psychologist Spanish. This expert has indicated that with that word he intended to define the fear of not having something to do. It is one of those contemporary problems that began to gain ground without us realizing it. When those obsessed with work or people who used this activity to escape from problems they did not want to face began to arrive for consultations, we began to see the face of this problem.

Apparently, There are currently many people in the world who are beginning to feel panic when they see themselves in front of an empty time. Or a time that is not planned. Or one in which they have already finished everything they had to do and can only see a long line of minutes that lead, according to those who suffer from leisurephobia, to nowhere.

How is it possible that we have come to fear him to free time? Our parents or our grandparents saw it as a gift. Rest time was time for recreation or rest. In any case, he never aroused aversion. Quite the opposite: he missed himself. What happened?

Leisurephobia and boredom

Everything seems to indicate that boredom took the status of capital sin in current times. Those who have leisurephobia also feel terror at the possibility of being bored. This feeling is intolerable and literally creates panic. “Wasting” time, doing nothing, is for them like contracting a plague.

Rafael Santandreu, photography by Alvaro Monge

People who feel this way become desperate when they are not doing something.. They see free time as a powerful threat. If we could draw what they feel, it would be as if they had an enormous black hole in front of them that threatens to suck them into an abyss.

In relation to leisure time, some not very defined fantasies also appear. It’s like they have a feeling that something terrible is going to happen to them. As if the leisure component were something unknown and terrifying that they do not want to face.

The symptoms of those who suffer from leisurephobia

The most visible symptom of those who suffer from leisurephobia is anxiety. This occurs with full intensity when they remain “deprogrammed.”. When they directly face free time, but it also appears before starting a weekend in which there are no plans and increases before the holidays.

These people are strongly influenced by ideologies of efficiency and productivity.. They put achievements and achievements above their happiness. The worst thing is that they measure their successes in quantitative terms, not qualitative ones. You hear them talk about how many tasks they have done or how many objectives they have met. They mention little the real quality of those achievements.

It is also serious that these types of people try to transmit this lifestyle to their children.. They are the type of parents who enroll their little ones in whatever courses there are. They want them speaking German at age 10 and playing the piano perfectly at age 13. One way or another, they teach kids to also be anxious. They transmit the idea that the time they do not dedicate to producing or learning is the worst of the ogres. Long live leisure! Long live boredom!

Rafael Santandreu, father of the concept of leisurephobia, says that we should learn to be bored more. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing terrible about spending an hour staring at the wall and thinking nonsense. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, but it is very necessary. It is a piece that fits perfectly into the concept of balance. It’s good to work and be interested in something. But it’s just as good to rest and get bored from time to time.

Santandreu indicates that idle minds are much more productive. He even indicates that “The ideal proportion would be one hour of business and 23 hours of leisure.”. Remember that lions hunt only once a week. And what Cervantes wrote The Quijote in his leisure time in Castilla. Nothing remained of his work as a tax collector and instead the result of his leisure produced a transformation of the language and universal literature that has survived to this day.

It would be nice if we regained the ability to look at the landscape while walking around the city. It is necessary that we slow down, that we begin to go slower. Better to do a few things with pleasure than many things with stress. Better to use this short time of life in loving and creating, than in making reports and meeting schedules.. It is not a sin to stay without doing anything. It’s not a pain to get bored. Quite the opposite: all of this makes us better.

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