Kuala Lampur, Nov. 11 -- "Our bodies and minds are subject to a culture that relates to every moment as an opportunity to produce or consume." - Josh Cohen

A company director I know was given an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris. It was a three-week vacation FOC.

That's 21 days of doing nothing but eat croissants and visiting the Eiffel Tower. Know what happened?

He flew back after four days. Couldn't take the pure nothingness and horror of having no meetings to chair, no subordinates to instruct, no projects to manage.

It's a paradox.

Open-ended, unstructured, free-and-easy time is (supposedly) the time during which there are no obligations or requirements to do anything other than what you decide to do.

The problem is that for many ...