Country Living with Francis Farragher

Many years ago on a summer sojourn on ‘the buildings’ I remember a labourer from Conamara being asked if he could help out with some routine task . . . maybe ‘moving a concrete mixer’ or ‘shifting a few pieces of scaffold’. He declined the request with one short but very succinct reply: “I can’t – sure I’m killed with the busy.”

The sentiment came into my head the other evening when in the midst of a few farm tasks, I sat on the recliner, stretched out the legs and had a cup of tea. A bit of tiredness started to creep in, and I felt a little doze coming on before rousing myself to get out and about again.

At times though, are we not all a bit too hard on ourselves. If we’re not ‘at something’ a fog of guilt seem to embrace our senses and we just keep hopping along from one task to the other without taking a ‘time out’ here and there.

Along the way then we hear of someone who has ‘passed away ahead of schedule’ on their date with destiny the thought does cross my mind of: “Do we all need to slow down a bit.”

Most of us ‘country lads’ were back the years brought up with a strong work ethic, and while there’s nothing at all wrong with that, we were never really told about the virtues of having a break here and there. Quite simply just taking a rest for a few minutes and not feeling guilty about doing nothing is, according to some life gurus, the way to go.

A few years back during a browse through a book shop, I purchased a work which had the rather curious title of ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ by former Guardian columnist, Oliver Burkeman, and subtitled ‘Time Management for Mortals’ where I came across a word that I wasn’t over-familiar with, namely ‘finitude’. If you click into the Collins’ dictionary [God be with the days of the battered old book version beside the keyboard] the definition of finitude reads: “The quality or state of being finite or limited.”

One of his basic principles for mining into some kind of contentment in life is to first accept that regardless of how you live your life that you’re essentially doomed. Whether it be 25 or 95, there is no escaping from our finite lifespan. My interpretation of that philosophy is to make the most of every moment, every hour, every week and every month of our existence. Beyond that monthly time span  . . . well things can get just of hand . . . and the ‘present’ can be forgotten about.

Pictured: Time for a break!