ROI of doing nothing

We live in a world that has literally over used the phrase “What’s the ROI?”

We’ve somehow reached an era where every single minute of our waking lives needs to pull its weight. A hobby isn't allowed to just be a hobby anymore; it has to double as a side hustle, a content pillar, or at the very least, an aesthetic Instagram reel. If you’re knitting a scarf, someone is inevitably asking if you’re planning to start something of your own. If you are reading a book on the weekend, you’re secretly calculating whether it makes you a sharper thinker or just a more optimized human and or how would it look on my insta reel as a recommendation.

Even our downtime comes with a fitness tracker attached. We meditate to lower cortisol (so we can go back to sending frantic emails faster) and walk 10,000 steps like we are in a competition. It makes you want to throw your planner out the window and bake a cupcake entirely from scratch, knowing full well it will collapse in the middle like a fumbled pass and taste entirely like regret.

Do you remember the Bollywood classic Dil Chahta Hai. We all loved it because of that spontaneous road trip to Goa where nobody cared about the itinerary, the hotel bookings, or the ROI of staring at the ocean. They just went because the road was there, and the air felt good and you were doing it with your friends

We could use a little more of that chaotic, beautiful uselessness don’t you think ?

There is an undocumented magic in doing things that produce no measurable output, solve no global crisis, and add precisely zero rupees to your bank account.

I learned this again this week. Instead of buckling into a cocooned, air-conditioned car where my brain is usually split between a self-improvement podcast, listening to music and a mental tally of pending to-dos, sitting there looking as tense as a goalkeeper facing a penalty shootout. I ended up on the back of a two-wheeler as a pillion rider. No headphones. No mental spreadsheets. Just the sheer, unbridled rush of the evening breeze hitting my face, reminding me what air actually feels like when you're moving through it instead of trapped behind glass. I watched the world blur past: the neon glow spilling out of small corner shops, vendors shouting over traffic, strangers walking side-by-side with shopping bags, entirely unbothered by quarterly targets. For twenty minutes, I wasn't an optimizer or a producer. I was just a person existing in the open air, letting the rhythm of the street wash right over me. It was wildly inefficient. It got me no closer to inbox zero. And it was absolute perfection.

As my favourite character of all times Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) once noted, "Not doing anything often leads to the best kind of something."

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we traded that wonder for utility. We became professional accountants of our own joy, treating our free time like a strict referee ready to blow the whistle the second we try to relax.

I give myself and everyone official permission to waste some time everyday. Sit on your balcony for an hour watching a stray dog just lazying in the sun and then trying to outsmart a pigeon, with zero intention. Buy a ridiculously oversized notebook and doodle terrible, lopsided little stars. Make a playlist of overly dramatic 90’s songs that no one will ever listen to except you, while drinking your fourth cup of chai because counting caffeine milligrams sounds like a red-card offense.

There’s a quiet freedom in letting things be profoundly pointless.

Hop on a bike, leave the earphones at home, and go mess something up. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? You might actually enjoy yourself. And honestly? That’s a terrible investment.. so let’s do it anyway.