Driving down the hill this afternoon, I bumped into my neighbour, Vicente. He is one of the few people (even round here) who lives mostly off the land. I mentioned I was heading down to the office to do a bit of work. ‘I don’t work’ he said.
This puzzled me. After all, I happen to know that this week he and his family have harvested (by hand) several tonnes of olives. ‘I only do what I like’ he said. ‘I don’t have any money, but then I don’t work like you do’.
Actually, since my ‘work’ this afternoon consisted of an hour’s conversation on Skype with my great friend Amanda Blake about her upcoming book ‘Your Body is Your Brain’ I am perhaps not so different from Vicente, at least, not today. And I remembered that just over a week ago I had lunch in Madrid with my brother in law, who is a Professor of Psychiatry at Manchester University. And he said something very similar to Vicente – about how privileged we are to be able to do what we like.
So I wonder what would happen if anyone who can, whenever they can, started acting like Vicente?
Stop working – do what you like.
