The Secret Life of You: Why Kerri Sackville wants us to learn to be alone

Posted on 2 August, 2023

To celebrate the launch of Kerri Sackville’s latest book, The Secret Life of You (and her upcoming event at Muse on Sunday 13 August) we’re sharing an excerpt with you.

Our modern society has a severe (and severely unhelpful) bias against doing nothing. We all flaunt our busyness like a badge of honour, constantly trying to prove just how much we have to do. Being busy means that we are important and needed, and so we compete with our friends over whose life is the most frantic.

‘I’m flat out,’ we tell each other, or ‘I’ve got so much on!’, or ‘Things are crazy right now!’ None of us wants to admit that we have time to do nothing. We don’t even want to admit it to ourselves.

When we do take time off it is structured and formalised, to make the most of every minute of the day.

We do yoga, or we meditate, or we go on retreats, or we play golf, or we engage in an improving hobby. We read the latest novel, or we watch the must-see Netflix show, or we listen to the viral podcast.

What we don’t do very often is lie on the couch and daydream or go for a stroll and get lost in our thoughts. What we don’t do very often is nothing at all, or even one thing at a time.

‘To do one thing at a time makes me anxious,’ said Ariela. ‘If I’m driving, I need news, a podcast or an audiobook. If I’m cooking or doing laundry or housework, I need the same thing. I get anxious that I’m not using my time in the best possible way if I don’t pair tasks with news and culture input.’

Even during a pandemic-induced lockdown, there was relentless pressure on us all to be busy and to make the most of our time.

People posted on social media about their homemade sourdough, spring cleans, creative projects, side hustles, and new and exciting exercise regimes. It felt incredibly unfair to me. Surely it was enough just to survive a catastrophic global pandemic? Did we all have to be productive as well?

The bias against doing nothing is particularly strong for women, especially mothers of young children. Media personality and mother of two Sally Obermeder experienced this firsthand when she posted about taking a twenty-four-hour mini-break alone in a hotel late in 2021.

‘My DMs went crazy,’ she told me. ‘I had thousands of replies from women saying, “Oh my god I need this,” but people asked me not to share their comments.’

‘Why would they not want their comments shared?’ I asked. ‘People said, “It sounds amazing, and I want to do that, but I wouldn’t want anyone to think I want to do that,”’ Sally said.

‘I think there’s an element of martyrdom, a pressure in society to be what we feel like is the perfect mum. And the perfect mum is always on, so there’s a perception that if you have this time to yourself, you’re selfish.’

‘Do you think men struggle with taking time out for themselves?’ I asked, but I knew the answer. Every father I know goes off to play golf for a day, or has a boys’ night out, or goes to the footy without any sense of guilt or shame.

‘When [my husband] Marcus is away, he might ring and say I miss you,’ Sally told me, ‘but he never says he feels guilty. His mates don’t say, “If only I could do that.” It’s collectively a female thing.’

Taking time out to do nothing is never actually doing nothing. Sure, you can squander your days by spending hours on Candy Crush or watching cat videos on repeat. But actually doing nothing – which very few people do – is no more a waste of time than meeting a friend is a waste of time. It is connecting with yourself instead of connecting with another person.

As Sally explained to her young daughters, ‘It’s the same as a playdate, it’s just a playdate by myself.’

Doing nothing is processing. Doing nothing is daydreaming. Doing nothing is spending time in the secret world of your mind.