Why is busy good?

Being busy isn’t something to be proud of. At some point in the recent past we got brainwashed into thinking that being constantly busy and having no time to stop and think was admirable. That’s utter bullshit.

Passed down by people paying for labor, the idea lets you give up vacations and downtime happily – it means you’re a good person. Work so hard you never have time for anything but work. And see how awesome you are?

This spills into everything else, too. Look around. How many of you are just constantly busy? Even if you aren’t getting anything done or actually doing anything you are somehow always busy. That’s because of two things:

A) Busy is supposed = good, so even when you don’t have much to do you want to seem busy, even just to yourself, so you inflate what you do have to do. You make yourself a false busy schedule.

B) The less you have to, when this idea is in your head, the busier you feel. Because you don’t inflate the real things to make yourself feel busy – the busier you actually are, the less busy you feel. Silly, but true.

But the root of all of this is still – why do we think it’s good to be busy? I have a lot to do. I am constantly busy. But I don’t enjoy it in that sense. I enjoy the work, the chances and the product I produce but I miss having more time to sit and read, or watch the sky, or just think. I miss it and I try to sneak bits of it in when I can.

I don’t know. I can’t get behind the Busy Culture.