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One of the least arduous but most productive of gardening jobs, the magic of deadheading never fails to delight me. It was a revelation when the principle was explained to me: that flowers are the attempt by the plant to reproduce itself. So if you cut the heads off before the flower turns into seeds, the plant will continue to flower.

Tom Hodgkinson

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Tom Hodgkinson
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Bookseller
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Newcastle
Magic
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Gardening
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Explained

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Bosses should sanction the nap rather than expect workers to power on all day without repose. They might even find that workers' happiness - or what management types refer to as employee satisfaction results - might improve.
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The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, I don't want to become one of the living dead. I haven't got anything to lose, now I can start to follow my own dreams.
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What I've found in working less is you start to get a bit more involved in the more real politics, which is local politics that affect what's going on in your own community.
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Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience.
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Pain will never leave us. Instead of putting energy into destroying pain, we need to put energy into creating pleasure.
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When walking you see things that you miss in a motor car or on the train. You give your mind space to ponder.
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Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don't work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it's easier to start doing what you want to do.
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Truly, the bench is a boon to idlers. Whoever first came up with the idea is a genius: free public resting places where you can take time out from the bustle and brouhaha of the city, and simply sit and watch and reflect.
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I suddenly realised, hey, I'm not a lazy idiot, I'm an idler! It's something to aspire to, it's part of the creative process! That's fantastic!
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Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking.
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The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.
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I count it as a certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.
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The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff - I'm not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren't losers but who didn't believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.
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I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find a culture where loafing is the order of the day and where they don't understand our need to be constantly doing things. Find somewhere you can have a hammock holiday.
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There's nothing new about anti-work philosophy. History is dotted with individuals and groups who decided that laziness was next to godliness and work was a waste of time.
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Am I the only person in the world who is shocked and amazed at the ongoing flattery of uebergeek Mark Zuckerberg?
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Often, the things that a lot of work has gone into have been incredibly bad because they're over-worked.
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