Optimal "Productive" Misery
How our obsession with productivity is holding us hostage in the rat race.
How do you introduce yourself to a stranger? What’s one of the first questions you ask when you meet someone for the first time? Is the identity your job grants you holding you hostage?
In WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic) countries it’s very likely that introducing yourself revolves around your job title. What if, our jobs didn’t define us? With more than half of people actively disengaged at work it’s very unlikely that our jobs are actually what define us.
There is so much more to being human, and most of it, is in all honesty, likely far more interesting than our careers. So why are we limiting ourselves to this narrow way of defining ourselves and our worth? What if we simply believed to be worthy, interesting and enough? Regardless of our job, working hours or levels of productivity.
“To be colonized is to accept and buy into the lie of our worth being connected to how much we get done… You are worthy of rest. We don’t have to earn rest. Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out…. I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system. Exhaustion keeps us numb, keeps us zombie-like, and keeps us on their clock.”
Sometimes I Nothing
Just nothing. Simply playing with my toes, rocking in a hammock or staring into the distance. That this feels like a confession says enough.
A couple of years ago I struggled with doing nothing. My phone joined me to the toilet to read the latest news. My laptop frequently became the victim of morning yoghurt attacks, typing whilst munching my breakfast proved not to be a great combo. Working whilst eating just seemed an efficient use of time. Cooking, walking or painting meant listening to audiobooks or podcasts. Watching a movie could be easily combined with checking some emails. It wasn’t that I worked all the time. I have always enjoyed travelling, museums, books and hikes more than spending time behind my laptop. But every ‘unoptimized' moment was filled in ways that made me feel productive. Was it productive? Heck no!
Productivity hacks, 30 under 30 lists, high-performance speakers and time management tools are constantly pushing us to be more productive, efficient, faster and better. Where does this desire to be ‘productive’ all the time come from? Who does it benefit? And what does this obsession mean for life on earth?
How often do you question if you are being productive enough?
How many times per day are you pissed at yourself because you are ‘wasting time’?
How many exhausted hours do you just bounce around aimlessly on your laptop because you ‘have to work’?
How often do you compare your working hours or productivity to others?
Fueling a society with an obsession for productivity is a really easy way to trap people into consumer-oriented hyper-capitalism. Working, buying and working in an endless loop without having a moment to stop and consider what makes life worth living.
“that there are millions of people across the world — clerical workers, administrators, consultants, telemarketers, corporate lawyers, service personnel, and many others — who are toiling away in meaningless, unnecessary jobs, and they know it…. It didn’t have to be this way….
Technology has advanced to the point where most of the difficult, labour-intensive jobs can be performed by machines. But instead of freeing ourselves from the suffocating 40-hour workweek, we’ve invented a whole universe of futile occupations that are professionally unsatisfying and spiritually empty.”
Rest is Resistance
I don’t live a so-called traditional lifestyle. I have no rent or mortgage, no car, stable income, pets or permanent address. I live semi-nomadically for most of the year and I am often in communities surrounded by people who have ‘non-conformist’ views of life.
Still! I fell for the productivity, ego-centric, career-ladder-focused vanity metrics. Despite constantly talking about stepping out of the rat race, prioritizing rest over busyness, life over career, values over money, and friendships over achievements, I still wanted to be on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. To this day I struggle with this feeling and I find it hard to see resting, doing nothing and being bored as times well lived.
Like all of us in WEIRD societies, I have a present ego shaped by the expectations and collective stories of society. Sometimes she is hungry, and in more balanced healthy times she is smaller and aware of her ever-shrinking place. I have to keep telling her. Doing nothing is not a waste of time. Always doing something is a waste of life. It’s a lifelong journey to disconnect feeling good, nourished, alive and thriving from being busy, earning money and collecting “successes”. New role models are of huge value in this (un)learning journey. What if inspiring beings like Bob the Sealion, Teresa the Sloth and Kinga the Hedgehog influenced our careers and life goals?
Getting my phone stolen was one of the biggest gifts imaginable. Being “forced” to just live without for months gave me so much calmness and awareness, so much room to experience life more intentionally. I realized how much simply carrying a phone constantly fueled the drive to “be” productive or at least do something.
How can we begin to ask different questions?
Have you ever wondered what’s enough? It’s the opposite of the dominant questions in WEIRD societies. Is there more? Do the neighbours have more? Will my children have more?
How can we begin to ask different questions?
What’s sufficient?
What nourishes us? What nourishes life?
What does needing mean to me?
Who influences our desires and dreams?
Are our dreams ours?
What do we want when all noise falls away?
Can we reach the desires and dreams of our essence?
Do we know ourselves well enough, to know what nourishes us?
Why do we see desires as held by individuals?
How can we tap into collective dreaming?
Creating space for Sense-Making
In all honesty, our obsession with productivity, progress and careers simply doesn’t make a lot of sense. This dominant narrative harms all beings on Mother Earth, including ourselves. I want to share an exercise and a book with you that helped me create space for sense-making, and for realizing the limitations and absurdities of the modern approach to work-life balance. Don’t get me started on the notion that nobody blinks an eye at the odd concept of work-life balance. As if work is something separate from life. It implies that work is a death zombie state and the life part is when we awaken and nourish ourselves.
Placing to-do lists, career plans and humanity into perspective:
“Deep Time Walk is a transformative journey through 4.6bn years of Earth history via a 4.6km guided walk. It is an invitation to view the world differently, encouraging positive action and advocacy for a regenerative Earth.”Recognizing the madness of suppressing our creativity:
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”
👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿 "All Adults were once children, and only few will ever remember"
Love, love, love this!