Joy of Doing Nothing: How Hustle Culture Stole Our Time and Sanity

What if doing nothing was the most radical thing you could do?

In a world that glorifies exhaustion, monetizes every minute, and treats rest as laziness, The Joy of Doing Nothing offers a bold and timely rebellion. This powerful collection of essays dismantles the toxic narratives of hustle culture-from the fetishization of busyness and burnout to the commodification of leisure, wellness, and even our own sense of worth.

With precision, clarity, and a deeply human voice, Dr. Karthik Karunakaran challenges the modern obsession with being useful, productive, and optimized at all costs. Drawing on cultural critique, historical insight, and personal reflection, he exposes how our time has been colonized by capitalism-and how choosing to rest, wander, and simply be is a subversive act in systems designed to extract and deplete.

From the false promises of gig work and self-improvement media to the sacred practice of boredom, stillness, and aimlessness, this book is a call to reclaim our right to do nothing-not as escape, but as liberation.

Provocative, poetic, and profoundly restorative, The Joy of Doing Nothing is a manifesto for anyone who's tired of being tired-and ready to take their time back.