Dally: (v) to waste time; loiter; delay

I, for one, have grown weary of the judgmental attitude of the New Oxford Dictionary.

First of all, what’s so new about it? It acts like my grandma the first time she saw me in a turtleneck. Or for that matter, the first time Grandma saw me in anything that wasn’t popular in 1950.

Let us understand—I believe in the power of “dally.”

So much am I a supporter that I have linked my dilly with my dally to form a meaningful experience: dillydally.

Mr. Oxford, I am not wasting time. I am preserving it, lengthening it and treasuring it by sitting down and relaxing instead of hustling along, trying to prove I am some sort of “great worker.”

It certainly is not loitering, as you suggest. I am not perched on a park bench feeding the pigeons, sticking out my tin cup to receive donations from the innocent park-walkers.

Wasting time? Hardly. How is it wasting time to try to elongate moments by creating a slower pace of a more pleasurable style?

Truthfully, I do not see that people who rally produce more than those who dally.

And when you add a good dilly in on top of it—that being the desire to find something humorous along the way—you set yourself up in a lifestyle that is sparkling and tries to accentuate every breath, squeezing potential out of each second as it goes by.

I would dare to say that Thomas Edison, arguably the greatest inventor of all time, uncovered the light bulb in the midst of a dally. Exhausted over failures, he slowed down and decided to just experiment, and in so doing, found the correct filament to light up his life—and yours and mine as well.

I think there are many Presidents that did more during their dally time than they ever did campaigning, pushing, shoving and attacking.

So here’s to the dally.

May we always be in the pursuit of a simpler way to do things, a happier way of accomplishing them and a sense of utter relaxation while pursuing.