How do you respond when people ask, “How are you?” For my part, aside from the usual “I’m good,” my usual responses are often some variation of “I’m so tired” or “I’m keeping busy.” Or even, “I’m so tired and busy.” For the longest time, I’d rationalize or justify this kind of response, both to myself and others: It’s better to be busy than bored. Heck, I even wrote a whole blog post on the topic, mostly to address the cognitive dissonance going on between my ears.

Caught Up in a Lie

But, the more I stop to think about it, the more I choose to be more honest with myself, I’m starting to realize that perhaps I was lying to myself. Or, at the very least, I was perpetuating a delusion within myself about what it means to be busy. This is a narrative that many of us have internalized in modern society. Chalk it up to consumer culture, the capitalist dream, and social media. Maybe. Either way, it’s definitely there.

As much as we might think we want to fight against burnout and overextending ourselves, we usually end up self-sabotaging ourselves with more stuff to do. On a subconscious level, despite complaining about having so much to do, we want to be busy. Or at least we want to think that we’re busy (and we want other people think that we’re busy too). Why is that?

Busy as a Proxy for…

When we are busy, we presumably believe that we are doing important things. This could relate to our jobs, caring for loved ones, volunteering in our community, creating awesome content online… the actual tasks themselves perhaps matter a bit less in this context than the simple fact that we are busy. But, this perceived reality of “being busy” doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We’re using it as another way to define who we are. Or rather how much we want to be worth.

Put another way, when we tell people we are busy, what we really want to tell them is that we are valued. People who are busy are in demand. They’re needed. We’re using the concept of being busy as a proxy for importance. People who are busy are not easily replaceable. If some random stranger can step in and do what you do, then you probably aren’t very important or unique or special.

But busy people? Look at them. They’re important people doing important things. Or at least that’s how they want to be perceived. As a result, so many of us have developed this habit of wearing “busy” as a badge of honor.

Society Celebrates the Bisy Backson

Do you remember the Bisy Backson false character from Winnie the Pooh? The name derives from a misspelled sign that was supposed to read, “Busy. Back soon.” The reality is that modern culture has elevated this idea of the Bisy Backson to a caricature that should be lauded and praised.

The person putting in 80 hours at the office? Well, she deserves a promotion for her hard work and dedication! The online content creator burning the midnight oil editing a YouTube video while creating unique content for their Patreon supporters? Well, you’ve got to admire that hustle! Right? Maybe not.

When we constantly choose to overextend ourselves, we will never achieve a level of “busyness” that meets our ever increasing standards. It will never be enough. More importantly, ironically enough, we start to lose sight of the things we truly value, the things that we really feel are important. Ambition is good. Having goals is good. But so is taking the time to actually enjoy life.

Maybe, we need to do less so that we can live more. Now that’s a thought.

For more on this topic, I recommend picking up Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee. The book inspired me to write today’s post, even if it’s a couple weeks later than I had hoped. And that’s okay.

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