Every minute you’re arguing with strangers online is a minute you’re not playing with your dog.

Modern life feels frantic. There’s a ton going on: family obligations, activities with the kids, work, the side hustle, maintaining your living space and car, eating right and exercising, and so on. It feels impossible to keep up. You could use a life preserver but people just keep handing you bricks. But amidst all the frenzy, regardless of how busy you are, you should stop what you’re doing and go play with your dog. Sure, there are more important things to do. You likely have a long list of outstanding items that need to be taken care of. Between domestic chores and work items, life can feel overwhelmingly busy at times. How can we possibly justify taking time away from our assortment of very important tasks to go play with the dog?

You’re Not That Busy

We’re going to take a controversial stance here and say that you probably aren’t as busy as you think. If you sit back and think about your week, you’ll likely find that you had more downtime than you’d care to admit. Many office workers might admit that a fair amount of their day is spent looking busy instead of doing anything meaningful. The average American spends more than three hours a day aimlessly scrolling on their phone. We find time to watch TV shows and movies. But in the narrative we construct about our lives, we love to portray ourselves as frantically busy. This trend is exacerbated by a toxic relationship with work that places a lot of societal value on one’s productivity and almost none on one’s happiness as a human being. We cultivate images of busyness, but at least some of that is probably smoke and mirrors...