Idle

Ok so I got distracted.  Maybe I won’t call it being distracted, I’ll call it seizing an opportunity.  I was thinking about the saying “idle hands are the devil’s playground.”  Apparently to say such a thing has been in vogue since Chaucer’s time.
I am totally for having a decent break.  I try to get one day a week and I guess it is a carryover from my workdays that I try to get a month off or so once a year.  I need that time to recharge my batteries.  I am no good to anyone (myself included) if I am spent.  Henry Ford said “That the Devil finds work for idle hands to do is probably true. But there is a profound difference between leisure and idleness.”  I agree with that.  Leisure is good.  Idleness is bad.
Although I am totally in favour of time off, I need to be careful I do not spend the time idly.  As they say nature abhors a vacuum (so that is my excuse to avoid vacuuming when I can) There is no doubt in my mind that if I have nothing to do, something will be found for me to do.  Hopefully I find something and that will be good.  If not, it is sure to be bad.
I was interested to learn during my workdays that our Long Service Leave is a carryover from when people came by boat from England.  The 12 weeks or so gave time for a round trip and to see families.
I am not thinking of the likes of visiting friends and family or many other activities which in my mind, are legitimate.  I just know myself well enough to know if I am saying things like “I’m bored” then chances are, my nature may incline me to do something that is not good for me or anyone.
The web has many variations of the phase, but they all mean the same thing “A person who doesn’t have something particular to occupy themselves will be tempted to occupy their time with mischief.”  Mischief probably has many meanings, but to me it is something which hurts myself or others and sometimes both.
Henry David Thoreau, Isaac Watts, and Benjamin Franklin all said things with a variation of this quote in them.  I really like something I read that a Milan Kundera (never heard of them till now) said, “There are moments in life when a man retreats defensively, when he must give ground, when he must surrender less important positions in order to protect the more important ones. But should it come to the very last, the most important one, at this point a man must halt and stand firm if he doesn't want to begin life all over again with idle hands and a feeling of being shipwrecked.”
I want leisure.  I don’t want idleness. 
​For me, idleness can lead to all sorts of negative consequences.