Doing Nothing

 

There is a Japanese man who makes a living by renting himself out “to do nothing”. He has garnered an enormous following online and thousands of clients. For £70, plus expenses for travels and meals, you can rent Shoji Morimoto, 37, from Tokyo but he will not do anything except “eat, drink and give a simple response”.

 

Morimoto first offered his services in June 2018 after posting a tweet that read: “I offer myself for rent, as a person who does nothing. Is it difficult for you to enter a shop on your own? Are you missing a player on your team? Do you need someone to keep a place for you? I can’t do anything except easy things.”

Apparently he originally offered his services free, Morimoto now has to charge to reduce the volume of requests and to discourage time-wasters. He sees three or four clients a day, and has been there for people 3,000 times since he first launched his service!

The most frequent  reasons that he is hired are boredom, loneliness and just to be listened to. He has also had lunches, posed for photographs on Instagram, accompanied someone filing for divorce, caught butterflies in the park and listened to health care workers struggling with their work. One time someone even paid Morimoto to take him from the hospital to revisit the spot where he had attempted suicide. He told the local newspaper  “I’m not a friend or an acquaintance. I’m free of the annoying things that go with relationships but I can ease people’s feelings of loneliness. I personally don’t like being cheered on by other people. It bothers me when people simply tell me to keep persevering. When someone is trying to do something I think the best thing to do is to make it easier for them by staying at their side.”

Morimoto is married and has a postgraduate degree in physics from Osaka University. In less than three years Morimoto - who used to work in publishing but left to “do nothing” - has published books about his career choice, inspired a television drama and acquired 270,000 Twitter followers.

One of his clients posted online: “I'm glad I was able to take a walk with someone while keeping a comfortable distance, where we didn't have to talk but could if we wanted to.” Another wrote: "I had been slack about visiting the hospital, but I went because he came with me."

Although this ‘doing nothing’ may sound initially hilarious or even ridiculous, you can see that it is in fact a very useful service that he can give, that he can be with people, accompanying them and in many ways this is a profoundly spiritual thing to do. Are we called to accompany people by listening, walking with or being there for them, giving our time?

A prayer that we may wish to use for someone we know ….

Circle of love
surround ……
May your love well up within….

Circle of healing
surround ……..
Circle of protection
Surround ….. with your eternal safety.
Give ……courage and strength
To live always in your love.