January. Grey skies, drizzling rain. Temperature: -1. Sitting at my desk, I’m dragging my feet, weighed down by a deep sense of fatigue and a lack of drive. I have this nagging feeling that I’m five years behind on everything. It’s a feeling that overwhelms me and eats away at my self-image. I laugh about it in the evenings with my friends; we share memes online that (barely) caricature our procrastination and our acknowledged or presumed failures. ‘That’s so us,’ we write, accompanied by laughing emojis. But behind this laughter lies a perhaps more bitter truth: the feeling that we aren’t really making the most of our lives. I’ve come to feel this very strange sensation: the exhaustion of being oneself.

Over the years, keeping my commitments has become a daily challenge. I feel unstable, unreliable, as if an essential part of me were falling apart. It isn’t always easy to make room for slowness, for downtime, for contemplation, for making mistakes in an era reshaped by the omnipresence of performance heroes: go-getters, entrepreneurs, adventurers, sportspeople, and so on. I used to be one of them. Perhaps I still am…

In 2024, after several years of chasing awards, success and external validation, I chose to slow down. In the arena where one is always winning more battles, building more networks and taking on more projects, my compass broke without me even realising it. Don’t get me wrong, I still have just as many dreams and ambitions, and I’m bursting with the desire to make them a reality. But I felt a strong need to redirect my focus in a different direction, to rest first and foremost. And then to redefine what success actually means. 

The first few months were bewildering, because this frantic race for performance had become the default way of life. But I’d had enough.


“We’ve internalised the idea that everything we do must have a measurable purpose.”


Many of us deprive ourselves of activities that bring us peace, on the pretext that they serve no purpose and yield no return. We’ve internalised the idea that everything we do must have a measurable goal. The sociologist Alain Ehrenberg explained as far back as the 1990s that an overload of objectives makes us vulnerable. Many of us are dependent on goals, obsessed with the search for meaning. Yet not everything always needs to have meaning. Some things have no meaning, such as childhood illness, to cite just one example. I prefer the value of time to that of meaning, which I believe is overrated. To inhabit time.

Whilst thinking about what might do me good, I realised that I’ve stopped making time for the simple things. Drawing, for example. Immersing myself in shapes and colours has always soothed me. Yet I no longer draw. I’ve convinced myself that it’s pointless, that it isn’t important enough for me to devote myself to it. 

But why would I draw? 

I’m not particularly ‘good’ at drawing. 

So what? (you might say). 

Yes, that’s true, so what? It’s not as if I’m going to exhibit my work in a gallery. 

That’s where I’m at. See? If I spend time drawing, it’s to nurture the distant hope of one day becoming a respected artist. I don’t draw because it doesn’t produce anything tangible. What right do I have to allow myself this time, which will yield neither performance indicators, nor recognition, nor an end-of-year bonus when I’m already struggling to meet all the goals that my life, my parents, my home and my job set for me?



“Over time, I realised that, although it felt dizzying, it was nice to let myself go, to let go.”



Suddenly, I no longer owed anything to anyone. My phone rang far less often, and I received fewer emails. I also realised who my ‘fair-weather friends’ were – you know, those people who hang around you because you’re on the up (they come and go; no need to worry). Some days, it’s true, you feel less important, but on other days it was so liberating that I’d sometimes allow myself the indulgent, guilty pleasure of letting people down… and doing things without any particular aim, like drawing, for the sheer pleasure of getting it wrong and starting again. 

It doesn’t matter whether I’m any good at it or not (and I’m not). No one’s looking over my shoulder, not even me. I call them my ‘white moments’; you know, like ‘white noise’. When I’m drawing, I’m not thinking about anything. I’m focused on the pencil gliding across the paper, and that fills me up. Perhaps the happiest person in all this is my five-year-old son, with whom I spend hours playing with shapes and colours. He’s delighted. These moments first became a lifeline, then an anchor.

When people asked me, “What are your plans?”, I’d reply, “I don’t have any.”


Coming from me, that was surprising. I had a knack, I must admit, for projecting the image of a woman who’d stop at nothing. The look of bewilderment on people’s faces made me smile. I observed just how difficult it is for many people to conceive of a life without a goal. So, yes, financially, I felt the pinch, but I adapted. And it was worth it. 


There’s the outward joy – diffuse, explosive and temporary – and then there’s the deep joy, which is a more intimate feeling, one that lasts longer. And that one grew stronger within me a little more each day. 


It hadn’t happened to me in a long time.


Useless things also have value… because in reality they aren’t useless. They heal the areas of pain within us. They restore our balance, bringing peace where we can no longer breathe. They remind us that we are simply human beings, not production machines, nor fuel for the machine. 

This idea is echoed in the research of Joël Billieux, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Lausanne, who explains that self-regulation — this refocusing on calming activities — is essential to avoid burnout. Kristin Neff, a doctor of behavioural psychology, shows that practising self-compassion, without the pressure to achieve results, reduces stress and builds resilience—that is, learning to cope better with challenges over time. The Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his theory of flow, describes this state of deep satisfaction that arises when one is fully absorbed in a task, even if it serves no immediate purpose.

Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way (a fascinating book that I highly recommend), discusses the power of creative activities without any pressure. They enable us to release repressed emotions and rediscover a sense of identity. She calls for the courage to not be ‘good’. These ideas are in line with works such as Pixar’s Soul, in which the hero discovers that life is not about performance, but about savouring the little things. Finally, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or Life in the Woods, which celebrates a simple, contemplative life, far removed from social expectations.

Not being good at an activity, not performing (what a funny word) is neither a flaw nor a problem. It reminds me that I am mortal. This sense of humility brings me closer to what really matters, and it brings me immense joy.

Rather than asking ourselves what our goals will be in 2025, I suggest we ask ourselves how we’ve spent our time recently and how we want to devote it in the future. In this year, 2025, I’m not setting myself any goals. That doesn’t stop me from being committed to doing well what I consider important. But I’m not looking to save time; I want to keep living it to the full. It was by embracing the idea of doing things without having to perform that I regained confidence in my ability to do so. 

So, if you need them, I wish you goals that make no sense. 

Warm regards,

Inès Leonarduzzi



Inès Leonarduzzi

Inès Leonarduzzi is a socio-environmentalist. A few years ago, she founded an NGO that advocates for and promotes digital technology that consumes less energy and is kinder to our brains. She is the author of the essay *Réparer le futur* (Published by Observatoire, 2021) and gives talks in France and abroad on a variety of topics, ranging from the environment to culture, including our new ways of living (together). She occasionally writes poetry. Every month throughout 2025, she invites readers to come together on Aroma-Zone.com to explore the theme of joy, so that we may collectively discover the possibilities for a daily life which, despite its ups and downs, is worth living.