I don’t normally make any new year’s resolutions. But this year will be different.
Last May, South Korea hosted a competition where dozens of participants competed to sit still, doing nothing, for as long as possible without falling asleep. The annual event, which began in 2014, challenges contestants to keep their heart rates steady while remaining completely motionless.
Welcome to the ‘Space Out Competition’.
The rules are simple: do absolutely nothing. (Falling asleep, however, leads to disqualification.) Organizers monitor the participants’ heart rates; the contestant with the most stable heart rate wins.
Participants this year came from home and abroad, including France, Nepal, South Africa, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
This year, Chilean Valentina Vilches emerged as the winner. She’s a psychologist living in South Korea, and she explained that, sometimes, doing nothing can have a positive impact on mental health.
South Korea is well known for its punishing work culture, with some of the longest working hours in the developed world. Despite the introduction of the 52-hour weekly work limit in 2018, overwork, burnout, and exhaustion are still common complaints. (Last year, the Korean government proposed to increase the maximum weekly working time to 69 hours, but the general public — in spite of being totally exhausted — kicked up a fuss and the government backed down.)
The Space Out competition was founded by a visual artist who goes by the pseudonym Woopsyang, after she suffered severe burnout.
“I wondered why I was so anxious about doing nothing,” she explained… until she finally realized her anxiety came from comparing herself to other people, leading busy lives.
“In fact, those people could also be wanting to space out and do nothing like me,” Woopsyang told CNN reporter Sophie Jeong. “So, I created a competition thinking that it would be nice to pause, all together at the same place at the same time.”
So far, I have missed participating in the ‘Space Out’ competition. It seemed like a long way to travel in order to do nothing, even if you theoretically have a chance to win a trophy.
Turns out that, although the ‘Space Out’ contest got its start in Seoul, South Korea, similar competitions have since been held in Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
And in Rotterdam.
But not yet in the U.S. Maybe we need to make American great again… at doing nothing?
We will note that Rotterdam is in The Netherlands, where cannabis — marijuana — has been available for recreational use in ‘coffee shops’ since 1976. So we can easily understand the interest people there might have, in a competition where you sit around doing nothing.
The interest by people living in Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Seoul is less obvious. Cannabis is still illegal in all those places.
We don’t really know where the U.S. is headed, in terms of competitive sports. Baseball is a bit like a “Space Out Competition” because most of the time, the players are standing around waiting for something to happen. (And I’m pretty sure falling asleep can get you disqualified.). But other than baseball, most of our competitions require almost constant movement and effort: running, jumping, throwing, kicking, tackling, punching, climbing, lifting…
Which explains why I have always avoided competitions like the plague.
But sitting still and doing nothing, other than maintaining a steady heart rate, is exactly the kind of competition I could get behind.
However, I don’t see the ‘Space Out Competition’ arriving in Pagosa Springs in the near future.
So my new year’s resolution is to start my own personal ‘Space Out’ competition, with myself.
On a daily basis.
I think I can win.