“Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today. But as Luca Spaghetti pointed out, we seem to like it. Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes. Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure). Americans don’t really know how to do nothing. This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype—the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.

I once asked Luca Spaghetti if Italians on vacation have that same problem. He laughed so hard he almost drove his motorbike into a fountain.

‘Oh, no!’ he said. ‘We are the masters of il bel far niente.’

This is a sweet expression. Il bel far niente means ‘the beauty of doing nothing.’ Now listen-Italians have traditionally always been harding workers, especially those long-suffering laborers known as braccianti (so called because they had nothing but the brute strength of their arms—braccie—to help them survive in this world). But even against that backdrop of hard work, il bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There’s anohter wonderful Italian expression: l’arte d’arrangiarsi—the art of making something out of nothing. The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyoe with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich.

For me, though, a major obstacle in my pursuit of pleasure was my ingrained sense of Puritan guilt. Do I really deserve this pleasure? This is very American, too—the insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness. Planet Advertising in America orbits completely around the need to convince the uncertain consumer that yes, you have actually warrented a special treat. This Bud’s for You! You Deserve a Break Today! Because You’re Worth It! You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby! And the insecure consumer thinks, Yeah! Thanks! I am gonna go buy a six-pack, damn it! Maybe even two six-packs! And then comes the reactionary binge. Followed by the remorse. Such advertising campaigns would probably not be as effective in the Italian culture, where people already know that they are entitled to enjoyment in this life. The reply in Italy to “You Deserve a Break Today” would probably be, Yeah, no duh. That’s why I’m planning on taking a break at noon to go over to your house and sleep with your wife.”

-Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Now, I’ve heard this claim that Americans have a reputation for working too hard before, and since I’ve never spent a considerable amount of time in another culture trying to either work hard or not work at all, I can’t really say whether it is a purely American phenomenon or not. Regardless, Elizabeth Gilbert’s point still stands. I feel lucky (and as society attends its judgment to my habits, increasingly lazier) that I experience this guilt of unproductivity (is it a word?) less than many other people I’ve talked to, but the more I talk about it, the more I realize how much of a minority I am. This is not to say that I spend all my days doing nothing, and it’s not to say that I don’t work hard, but to me, time spent sitting around with a book, eating a delicious chocolate chip cookie, dancing around the apartment in high heels to Cyndi Lauper with my roommates, or simply staring at dust if that’s what I want to do, is time well spent. Time is what you make of it. I think that for the people around me, and for myself at times, it is not necessarily the hard work that forces us to compromise pleasure, but the stress of the work, the stress of worrying about the work, of having too much on our plates to even be able to do the work, that makes us feel like we’re working hard and being productive and therefore deserve a break. I always try to remind myself that it is possible to exist purely and completely in one moment. If I take a break to eat a quick meal, I try to remember that thinking and worrying about what I’m going to have to do after I eat will not make the meal go significantly more quickly, and by thinking and worrying about what will take place after the meal instead of focusing on the pleasure of the meal and the time I am taking for myself, I will have lost my break altogether.