Do You Allow Yourself to Live “Uselessly”?

Today, let’s talk about a question that cuts straight to the bone.

Do you allow yourself to live uselessly?

Don’t rush to answer.

Hold that instinctive reaction for a moment.

Quick emotions aren’t the best companions for a question this deep.

Make yourself a cup of coffee.

Let the aroma settle you, and try to look honestly at the most authentic answer inside you.

Before answering, ask yourself a few smaller questions:

1. What do you believe the meaning of life is?
2. Do you think you’ve achieved success?
3. How do you define success?
4. Can success and happiness ever truly be the same thing?
5. If you haven’t succeeded, do you still allow yourself to be happy?
6. Which specific moments give you genuine joy?

After answering those, come back to the ultimate question:

Do you allow yourself to live “uselessly”?

Your answer will be yours alone — no right or wrong, no justification needed.

And mine is a big, resounding YES.

In fact, I believe this:

The true meaning of life is to allow yourself to live “uselessly.”

But three years ago, my answer was the complete opposite.

01 | I Was Once Trapped in a Utilitarian World

Three years ago, my life was wrapped tightly in one word: utilitarianism.

My family — especially my mother — evaluated everything and everyone by whether it produced a visible, measurable benefit.

She even confessed:

Having a child is an investment. It’s basically a form of retirement insurance.

Growing up, I heard things like:

• “A spring outing costs $15? Too expensive. Can you skip it?”
• “Games harm your grades. Pick another birthday gift.”
• “Steak is pricey now. Eat slower.”
• “Travel? Such a waste of money.”
• “Camping at the park? What a waste of time.”

Many times I wanted to scream:

If every action must be evaluated by whether it’s “worth it,” how is living any different from solving math equations?

But every time I saw the exhaustion on my parents’ faces, I swallowed my words.

02 | I Became Someone Swallowed by the “Proper Path.”

For the first half of my life, I was held hostage by the subtle violence of being turned into a “useful tool.”

Studying, testing, performing, progressing — my childhood and youth were chopped into neat little blocks.

My family’s teachings, teachers’ advice, and society’s definitions collectively wove a net called “the proper path in life.”

And I lay quietly in its seams, like the “animal laborans” Hannah Arendt wrote about:

Endlessly producing,

Endlessly consuming,

Until I forgot what it meant to experience being human.

We produce, we consume,

but in this loop we lose something precious —

the moments of simply being.

03 | A Misfortune That Became Fortune: Getting Laid Off Knocked Me Out of the Net

Three years ago, my entire department was cut.

A sudden, brutal layoff.

Like a rubber band pulled too tight for too long, the moment the force was gone, I collapsed with it.

I suddenly realized:

My entire existence had been built around “utility.”

Eating was to avoid hunger.

Buying clothes was for warmth.

Working was to save money.

Yes, I was alive.

But I had become so numb that I had lost all desire.

So I shut down the job apps.

Stopped struggling.

And decided to start wasting time.

04 | The First Time I Allowed Myself to Do Nothing

I spent five minutes making tea just to watch the leaves unfurl in the water.

I opened a book I had bought six months ago but never unwrapped.

Read three pages.

Got distracted by the shifting shadows of the sycamore tree outside the window.

I watched it for ten minutes.

In the past, this would have made me panic:

“Ten minutes? How many emails could I reply to? How many tasks could I finish?”

But that day, I didn’t think about anything.

Slowly, I picked up “useless” hobbies:

• Painting
• Lego building
• DIY crafts (felting, beadwork, weaving)
• Keeping tropical fish
• Dancing
• Cycling
• Working out
• Baking

One day, while writing my journal, I realized:

A human life has only a little over a thousand months.

If you draw them on a 30×30 grid, one A4 page is enough.

The meaning of life has never been to fill every square on that A4 page.

It is to draw something uniquely yours in some of the squares.

But here’s the cruel part —

Most squares get occupied by “usefulness”:

Work, earning money, supporting a family, paying loans, social obligations, fulfilling expectations.

We’ve turned life into an assembly line.

05 | Our Era Is Obsessed With Being Useful

Books must be useful — preferably finance, productivity, or self-help.

Friendships must be useful — ideally, resource-exchanging.

Hobbies must be useful — preferably monetizable, follower-growing, or at least social-media-worthy.

We weigh every action on the scale of utility, but forget to ask:

Aren’t pleasures without profit still pleasures worth having?

A single metric should never measure life.

Those seemingly useless things —

A poem at midnight,

Succulents on the balcony,

An old film camera,

A failed attempt at baking —

may not bring money, but they give us room to breathe.

So don’t feel ashamed when someone asks,

“Can this thing feed you?”

That version of you:

stargazing at 2 a.m.

practicing an instrument clumsily,

fighting monsters in a game,

pressing the shutter for a tiny flower —

That isn’t the useless you.

That is the real you.

Humans must fall in love — irrationally, passionately — with something,

to stay alive,

to prove we’re truly living.

06 | Doing Nothing Is a Gentle Rebellion

In a world obsessed with efficiency, growth, and optimization,

Choosing to do nothing is an act of courage.

It’s a gentle rebellion.

And an honest return to the essence of being alive.

Today, I did nothing.

Achieved nothing I can show off.

Learned no “useful” skills.

Added not a single bullet point to my resume.

But I relearned how to breathe.

How to feel the light shifting in my room.

How to hear the distant, blurred hum of the city.

How to coexist peacefully with the version of myself who isn’t busy.

At dusk, I lay on the couch and did nothing.

The daylight faded to softness, then to darkness.

No one scolds the sun:

“Is that it? Did you just set today? How unproductive.”

It simply exists.

And that’s enough.

So are you.

07 | Lastly, I Want to Ask You

If you’re willing, share with me in the comments:

Do you allow yourself to live “uselessly”?

What is your answer?

I would truly love to hear your story.