The Idler

On Being Idle

JEROME K JEROME, author of Three Men In A Boat, edited a magazine called The Idler in the 1890s. Here the inveterate indolent captures the paradox of the busy idler.

Idling always has been my strong point. Take no credit to myself in the matter – it is a gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slowcoaches, but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is that he is always intensely busy. It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation, then, and a most exhausting one.

I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. This is my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner, is when I have a heavy evening’s work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed. Ah! How delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: ‘just for five minutes.’

Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero of a Sunday-school ‘tale for boys,’ who ever gets up willingly? There are some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utter impossibility. If eight o’clock happens to be the time that they should turn out, then they lie till half-past. If circumstances change and half-past eight becomes early enough for them, then it is nine before they can rise; they are like statesmen of whom it was said that he was always punctually half an hour late. They try all manner of schemes. They buy alarm clocks (artful contrivances that go off at the wrong time, and alarm the wrong people). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the door and call them, and Sarah Jane does knock at the door, and does call them, and they grunt back “awri,” and then go comfortably to sleep again…

I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right, if I once got out. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find so hard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I say to myself, after having wasted the whole evening, “Well, I won’t do any more work to-night; I’ll get up early tomorrow morning;” and I am thoroughly resolved to do so – then. In the morning, however, I feel less enthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have been much better if I had stopped up last night.

JEROME K JEROME, author of Three Men In A Boat, edited a magazine called The Idler in the 1890s. Here the inveterate indolent captures the paradox of the busy idler.

Idling always has been my strong point. Take no credit to myself in the matter – it is a gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slowcoaches, but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is that he is always intensely busy. It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation, then, and a most exhausting one.

I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. This is my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner, is when I have a heavy evening’s work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed. Ah! How delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: ‘just for five minutes.’

Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero of a Sunday-school ‘tale for boys,’ who ever gets up willingly? There are some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utter impossibility. If eight o’clock happens to be the time that they should turn out, then they lie till half-past. If circumstances change and half-past eight becomes early enough for them, then it is nine before they can rise; they are like statesmen of whom it was said that he was always punctually half an hour late. They try all manner of schemes. They buy alarm clocks (artful contrivances that go off at the wrong time, and alarm the wrong people). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the door and call them, and Sarah Jane does knock at the door, and does call them, and they grunt back “awri,” and then go comfortably to sleep again…

I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right, if I once got out. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find so hard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I say to myself, after having wasted the whole evening, “Well, I won’t do any more work to-night; I’ll get up early tomorrow morning;” and I am thoroughly resolved to do so – then. In the morning, however, I feel less enthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have been much better if I had stopped up last night.