How to quit the cult of busy

Have you joined a cult by accident?

The cult I'm referral to is the cult of busy.

'If you're not tired, stressed and busy beyond belief, you're not trying hard enough'.

This would be the strap-line for the cult of busy. And it's gifts would be exhaustion, low self-worth and the feeling that there's always more you should be getting done or achieving. 

It was all well and good in the pre COVID-19 world. Getting up early to meditate and exercise, rush to work while listening to a podcast, work a long day with barely a break, squeeze in a social/gym/shopping something or other on the way home, get home, see the kids and get them to bed, thenzone out to netflix until it's a bit too late, and jump into bed knowing you'll be tired tomorrow because it's only 6 hours until the alarm goes off. Exhausted just typing that let alone doing in day in, day out, week in week out.

If someone asked if you had a free space in your diary to meet up, you'd check and see the next free weekend was one evening in July or after that, in October you had a Saturday free at a pinch.

Here's the thing. You've been so busy doing, that not being productive all the time and squeezing the very most out of every waking second feels wrong. It feels like you're underachieving.

But now that we're in lockdown, the result of accidentally joining the cult of busy is that you're stressed all the time that you're not achieving enough and giving yourself a hard time.

What if the answer was not to manage yourself better to do more, but to BE more instead. Be not do. Sit with your feelings. Acknowledge and process your anger, anxiety and feelings about your life in general. Put your wellbeing first instead of productivity.

Do you really still want to be a member of the cult of busy? Is it serving you, your health and your self-worth? Long term is this really how you want your life to be? Is your life designed the way you really want it to be?

This pandemic is a fantastic opportunity to slow down and take stock, and ask yourself what truly matters. When you know (and it'll turn out to be health, family and impact in the world), then how about you stop giving yourself a hard time about not achieving enough, and reframe what achievement really is.

Is success productivity, consumption and busy-ness? Or is it health, family and impact in the world, all in balance? Only build the future you really want. You have the chance to start over. I'd take it if I were you.