The word ophiophobia was coined by Rafael Santandreu, a Spanish psychologist, this expert indicated that with this word he intended to define the fear of not having to do something, it was one of those contemporary problems that began to gain ground without us noticing. When people who were obsessed with work or people who used this activity to get out of trouble they didn’t want to deal with started dating, we started to see the face of this problem.
Apparently, there are currently many people in the world who start to panic when they encounter an empty time or a moment that is not planned. Or the one where they finished everything they had to do and can only see a long line of minutes that take, according to those with oxyphobia, nowhere.
- “Idleness will be the most intense problem.
- Because it is very doubtful that man can fend for himself.
- “Friedrich Derrenmatt?.
How is it possible that we’re afraid of free time?Our parents or grandparents saw it as a gift. Rest time was a leisure or rest time, in any case, there was never an aversion to this. Quite the opposite: wanted, what happened?
Everything seems to indicate that boredom has now taken the condition of capital sin. People with obiophobia are also terrified of getting bored. This feeling is intolerable to them and literally causes them panic. ?Wasting time, doing nothing, is like getting them a plague.
Rafael Santandreu, photograph by Alvaro Monge
People who feel this despair when they do nothing, see free time as a powerful threat. If we could draw what they feel, they seem to have in front of them a huge black hole that threatens to absorb them into an abyss.
In the face of leisure there are also unstable fantasies, it is as if they feel that something terrible is going to happen, as if the leisure component is something unknown and terrifying that they do not want to face.
The most visible symptom of those with oxyphobia is anxiety. It is presented with all the intensity when they are “deprogrammed”. When faced directly with free time, it also appears before a weekend where there is no project and increases before the holidays. .
These people are strongly influenced by ideologies of efficiency and productivity, prioritized achievements and achievements over happiness, the worst thing is that they measure their success in quantitative and non-qualitative terms, they are heard talking about the number of tasks they have performed or the number of goals they have achieved. There is little talk of the true quality of these achievements.
It is serious that these types of people are trying to pass this lifestyle on to their children, parents enroll their children in as many courses as possible, they want them to speak German at 10 and play the piano perfectly at 13 in one way or another. , they also teach children to be anxious. They are given the idea that time they do not spend producing or learning something is the worst of ogres. May leisure be alive!
Rafael Santandreu, father of the concept of ophiophobia, says that you have to learn to get bored more, there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing terrible about spending an hour looking at the wall and thinking crazy, not only is there nothing wrong with that, but it is very necessary, it is a piece that fits perfectly into the concept of balance, it is good to work and carry interest in something, but it is also good to rest and get bored from time to time.
Santandreu says idle spirits are much more productive. He even states that “the ideal proportion would be one hour’s work and 23 hours of leisure. “Keep in mind that lions only hunt once a week. And that Cervantes wrote Don Quixote in his spare parts, time for Castile. There was nothing left of his work as a tax collector and, on the contrary, the result of his free time produced a transformation of the language and universal literature that came to us today.
It would be good for us to regain the ability to look at the landscape as we walk around the city. We have to slow down, start slowing down. It is better to do few things with pleasure than many with stress. It is better to take advantage of this short period of time that is life to love and create, than to make reports and respect schedules. It’s not a sin to do nothing. It’s not a scourge to get bored. Quite the opposite: all this makes us better.