Searching for oxygen in the Matrix

There are many articles being written about burnout and languishing on one side; and self care and wellness on the other. These articles are important.

I've even done my part and written about a few of these things in the past.

But today, I want to time travel a bit. I want to take you to Ancient Rome. To a time when there was a word—concept, really—that once existed to describe an even richer, deeper, more meaningful take on 'self care.'

It was called: otium.

Unsurprisingly, we only know it's opposite in English: negotiation (to negate otium).

What is Otium? Wikipedia defines it as:

… withdrawing from one's daily business (neg-otium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy).

But there is more to it than just that. Paraphrasing my Latin teacher in college, she taught us:

• Otium is one of those words whose original meaning doesn’t survive the translation to English. It generally gets translated to leisure or inactivity, which fails to capture how the Romans used it.
• Study the ancient texts and you’ll see otium used when the mind and body were often times plenty active—so long as they were actions free of obligation and tedium. No debating in the Senate. No haggling in the market. No expectation on your time from Responsibilities.

Like an oxygen mask dropping from the plane of life, I find my otium by asking:

• Who is my otium?
• When do I feel otium?
• Where is my otium?
• Can work be otium?

I highly encourage free-associating to discover and uncover what constitutes your otium. Here are a few of my answers, in case they help get you started:

• Talking with my sisters; by blood and by bond
• Sleeping in
• Reading for fun
• Reading for enrichment
• Getting the band back together again
• Listening to my version of “the oldies” on my "radio"
• Igniting childlike wonderment in those who need it most
• Making symbolic and linguistic twists in things that I do, like this list

Back to you. Whether you are drained, burnt out, over-extended, short-fused, languishing, or experiencing a combination of many modern maladies, I want to invite you to consider:

• What lights up your room?
• When does your soul exhale?
• When does time stop?
• Where is your greenhouse?
• What’s it like to discover a ‘favorite ____’?

Take action on what you uncover.

Grip and pry open the edges of your schedule: let there be otium-nourishing practices, people, and places in each of your days.

Create otium greenhouses oxygenated for the humxn “turtles” you encounter.

Pay less and less mind to that which neg’s your otium; support the turtles you encounter as we, together, make our way through the Matrix.

May you find and protect your otium—and help others do the same.

From the author: This is a remixed version of Otium, which recently appeared in my weekly newsletter Turtle Adventures. For more ways to flourish and help others do the same, do swing by for a hang.