A well-known academic who researches retirement policy recently referred to me as “the indefatigable Chris Carosa” in an article she wrote for Forbes. In case you were wondering, the dictionary defines “indefatigable” as “incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.” If she only knew the half of it.

I got one of those stomach bugs a couple of weeks ago. You know the kind I mean. They come from nowhere and lay you flat for a good twenty-four hours or so. In the interim, you don’t want to eat anything, you don’t want to drink anything – plain and simple you don’t want to do anything.

Except sleep.

And sleep I did. Pang in my gut notwithstanding.

Well, I didn’t quite sleep. It was more like floating in and out of consciousness. (C’mon, we’ve all been there, so you know what I mean.)

Funny thing when I fall under the weather like this. Physically, I’m beat. Can’t move. Don’t want to move. Just want to lay there in a quasi-vegetative state.

Only not really. Because as weak as my body feels, my mind is buzzing like a busy bee. A busy bee trapped in a hive that it finds quite confining.

As my body lay idle, my mind began exploring strange new mental states. It suddenly dawned on me. All this idleness took me away from my routine.

But what exactly was that routine. Sure, there was the routine of work. Yes, work wasn’t getting done, but would prove to be no big deal. (By some miracle, I had entered this Continue Reading “That Time I Discovered “Idle Time” Doesn’t Really Exist”