I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, looking at a half-eaten piece of toast and a cup of coffee that’s definitely gone cold. It’s one of those mornings where I feel like I’ve been “productive” for two hours, yet I haven’t actually accomplished anything that feels real. You know that feeling? You’ve checked thirty emails, scrolled through a dozen headlines, updated a calendar, and maybe even sent a few messages, but your brain feels like a browser with fifty tabs open, and three of them are playing music you can’t find.
We’ve become so incredibly good at being busy. It’s almost a talent now. If someone asks how we are, the default answer is “Busy!” usually said with a mix of exhaustion and a weird, underlying sense of pride. But lately, I’ve been wondering what all this speed is actually for. Why are we rushing? Why does it feel like we’re losing the ability to just… be? It’s something I’ve been chewing on—not just as a concept, but as a genuine problem in my own life. I’m tired of the rush. I think a lot of us are.
The Constant Hum of Modern Life
There’s this noise that exists now that didn’t use to be there. I’m not talking about traffic or the hum of the refrigerator. It’s a mental noise. It’s the constant, low-level awareness that there is always something else we could be doing, watching, or responding to. It’s like we’ve forgotten how to have an “off” switch. Even when we’re supposed to be relaxing, we’re often just consuming—watching a show while looking at our phones, or listening to a podcast while we’re supposedly “taking a walk” to clear our heads.
I tried going for a walk the other day without my phone. Just a twenty-minute loop around the neighborhood. It was physically uncomfortable for the first five minutes. I kept reaching for my pocket, thinking I should take a picture of a tree or check if anyone had messaged me. That’s a bit scary, isn’t it? That my brain has been so conditioned for constant input that silence feels like a threat. But then, somewhere around the ten-minute mark, something shifted. I actually noticed the way the air felt. I heard a neighbor’s wind chimes. I just… walked. It was the most “productive” thing I’d done all week, even though I had absolutely nothing to show for it.
We’ve been told that to be successful, or even just to stay afloat, we have to be constantly optimized. We have to maximize every minute. But I’m starting to think that optimization is the enemy of a life well-lived. When you optimize a person, you turn them into a machine. And machines don’t enjoy the smell of rain or the way a good song makes you feel.
The Trap of Being “Always On”
It’s funny how we’ve let this happen. We didn’t sign a contract saying we’d be available twenty-four hours a day, but somehow, we ended up there. There’s this unspoken pressure to be responsive. If an email comes in at 8 PM, we feel a little itch to answer it. If we don’t post about our weekend, did it even happen? We’re living in a state of hyper-awareness that’s frankly exhausting.
I remember a time—and maybe I’m dating myself here—when you’d leave your house and you were just… gone. If someone wanted to reach you, they had to wait until you got back. There was a sanctuary in that absence. Now, absence is something we have to fight for. We have to set “Do Not Disturb” modes and announce that we’re taking a break from the internet as if we’re going on a space mission. It shouldn’t be that hard to just be quiet.
I’ve found that the more I try to keep up with the “fast” world, the more anxious I get. It’s a race where the finish line keeps moving. You finish one project, and there’s another. You clear your inbox, and five more emails appear. It’s a treadmill, and the only way to get off is to just… stop walking. It sounds simple, but it’s one of the hardest things I’ve tried to do recently.
Small Ways to Reclaim Your Brain
I’m not suggesting we all go live in the woods and throw our laptops in a lake (though some days that sounds pretty good). It’s more about finding these little pockets of “slow” in the middle of the “fast.” Here are a few things I’ve been trying lately, mostly to stop myself from burning out:
- Single-tasking: It sounds boring, but I’ve been trying to do just one thing at a time. If I’m eating, I’m just eating. No TV, no phone. Just the food. It’s surprisingly difficult.
- Analog mornings: I try not to touch anything with a screen for the first thirty minutes of the day. I make tea, I look out the window, I maybe write a few lines in a physical notebook. It sets a different tone for the whole day.
- The “Wait” Rule: When I feel that impulsive urge to check my phone, I make myself wait sixty seconds. Usually, after a minute, the urge passes and I realize I didn’t actually need to check anything.
Learning to Love the Boredom
We are terrified of being bored. Truly. We treat boredom like a problem to be solved, a gap that needs to be filled immediately with a video or a game or a social media feed. But boredom is actually where the good stuff happens. It’s when your mind is bored that it starts to wander into interesting places. It’s where creativity lives. If you never let your brain be empty, it never has the space to fill itself with its own ideas.
I’ve started to realize that my best ideas—the ones that actually mean something to me—don’t come when I’m staring at a screen. They come when I’m washing dishes, or when I’m stuck in traffic, or when I’m just sitting on the porch watching the shadows move. We’re so busy filling every spare second that we’re starving our imaginations. We’ve traded depth for breadth. We know a little bit about everything happening in the world right now, but we’re losing touch with what’s happening inside our own heads.
Boredom is a skill. It’s something you have to practice. It’s about being okay with the silence and not rushing to end it. It’s about sitting with your own thoughts, even the uncomfortable ones, and seeing where they go. Honestly, it’s a bit like exercise. It’s hard when you start, and you’re looking for any excuse to quit, but after a while, you start to feel the benefits.
The Guilt of Doing Nothing
This is the big one, isn’t it? The guilt. If I’m not being “productive,” I feel like I’m failing. We’ve tied our self-worth so tightly to our output that “doing nothing” feels like a moral failing. I’ve spent so many Sunday afternoons feeling guilty because I wasn’t “getting ahead” for Monday. What a waste of a Sunday! What a waste of a life, really, to spend your rest time worrying about work.
I had to have a serious talk with myself about this. I had to remind myself that I am not a factory. My value isn’t measured in the number of tasks I complete or the amount of money I make. Rest isn’t something you earn after you’ve worked hard enough; rest is a fundamental human need, like breathing or eating. You don’t “earn” the right to breathe, do you? So why do we feel we have to earn the right to sit still?
It takes a lot of conscious effort to unlearn that guilt. I still struggle with it every single day. I’ll be sitting on the couch reading a book, and a voice in the back of my head will say, “You could be folding laundry right now. You could be answering that text. You’re falling behind.” But falling behind what? Life isn’t a race. There’s no trophy at the end for the person who did the most chores.
Finding Your Own Pace
At the end of the day, I think we just need to give ourselves permission to move a little slower. The world isn’t going to stop spinning if you take an hour to just sit and think. Your career isn’t going to implode because you didn’t answer an email on a Saturday. Most of the things we think are “urgent” are just loud. There’s a big difference.
I’m trying to focus more on the “slow” things now. Cooking a meal from scratch instead of ordering in. Writing a letter to a friend instead of just sending a “happy birthday” text. Reading a long book instead of a hundred short articles. These things take more time, sure. But they also give back so much more. They feel solid. They feel real.
It’s not about being perfect. I still spend too much time on my phone sometimes. I still get caught up in the rush. But I’m getting better at noticing when it’s happening. I’m getting better at saying, “No, not right now.” I’m learning that my attention is the most valuable thing I own, and I should be a lot more careful about who—and what—I give it to.
So, if you’re feeling that same kind of frazzled, stretched-thin exhaustion, maybe just try one small thing today. Put the phone in another room for an hour. Go sit outside and don’t bring a book or a podcast. Just watch the world go by for a bit. It might feel weird at first. You might feel that itch to be “productive.” But stick with it. You might find that the person you meet in the silence is someone you’ve actually missed quite a lot.
Life is happening right now, in the gaps between the tasks. Don’t forget to show up for it.