How being Idle made me Happy and Productive — Chuck B Philosophy

Charles Black M.D.
8 min readOct 1, 2020
Photo by Chuck Black and courtesy of ChuckBlackPhotography.com

I was walking down the hospital hall to do some “important” work, and all I kept thinking about was how I wanted to paint a picture. I had dabbled in painting on a few occasions in my life, but never put any serious effort into it. Nonetheless, the desire followed me through the day.

“I have had the weirdest impulse all day to paint a picture,” I told why wife when I got home.

“Like, you mean, make a painting?” she clarified.

“Ya, a landscape painting.”

She thought about that for a second and said, “Ok, go ahead.”

“What, no,” I replied, “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It would be silly.”

After all, I was an important doctor doing important work. Do you know how I knew that was true? Because I was busy. Back then, I worked long days, many nights, and nearly every weekend. When you are that busy, you have to be important. And important people don’t just do frivolous things like paint landscapes.

“Ok,” was her noncommittal reply.

“I have other things I need to do” is how I had closed the discussion.

She gave me a shrug that said, “If you aren’t going to do anything about this, why are…

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Charles Black M.D.
Charles Black M.D.

Written by Charles Black M.D.

Dr. Charles Black is a general surgeon, author, photographer, outdoorsman, world traveler and fireside philosopher. Website:https://chuckbphilosophy.com

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