HOW DID WE BECOME HARD CHARGING BULLS WITH NO TIME TO RELAX OR ENJOY LIFE?

 

It’s important to remind ourselves that life wasn’t always like this ...

That there was a time when we humans

Had more time for leisure, conversation and the arts.

There was a time when our default behaviour

Was to sit down and tell stories, and hold a conversation.

 

Something changed along the way,

And it wasn’t us, or our need to sit and tell stories.

What changed was our culture, and the role we played in it.

 

Today, our default is to always be doing something.

 

Our default thinking now is that we are losing something

Whenever we are sitting still and doing nothing.

And so we have taken it upon ourselves to invent more and more tools, 

Technology, processes and systems,

To do things quickly and efficiently, and to save time.

But what do we do with all the time we save?

One would have expected us to use this extra time

To relax and connect with family and friends,

And to immerse ourselves into the joys and pleasures of play, and the arts.

But no, that’s not we do. 

Instead, we cram more activities into it.

 

Our default now is productivity and more productivity.

We need to be seen doing something.

We need to feel like we are not wasting time.

‘Busy’ and ‘fast’ have become badges of honour, and status symbols.

And they come at a heavy price to our health and well-being.

 

It’s so serious and endemic that today we attend seminars and workshops

To be trained how to relax and be still.

Imagine that! We have literally forgotten how we used to do it.

 

Don’t we find it counter-cultural and ridiculous

That we have accepted it as normal, for doctors today,

To prescribe vacations and bed rests?

 

Don’t we find it paradoxical that we have invented complex technologies

To help us communicate ideas, thoughts and stories,

But have, absurdly, grown further apart, converse less,

And feel more isolated from each other than ever before in our history?

 

Don’t we find it farcical and telling, that we are more than willing

To defer taking a vacation in favour of work,

Than deferring work in favour of a vacation?

 

Don’t we find it counter-intuitive that we are more than willing

To exchange our time with family

With jobs that promise little or no time with family?

How did we come to place more value on the pay-cheque

Than on our own health and family?

How did we get to this point?

How did we come to normalize and accept such an atrocity?

 

Now look around, at the cost we are paying for our productivity-ethic.

Look at our drugged stupor, arched shoulders, taut faces and sleep-deprived eyes.

 

You might be tempted to think that you don’t have a choice,

But the truth is, you do.

You can choose different.

But to do that, to free yourself from this prison

That you have willingly and voluntarily agreed to enter,

You have to understand the culture we are living in,

And the many ways in which it induces and bribes us into enslaving ourselves.

Until then, you are going to find it increasingly difficult

To maintain your health and well-being, and of those you love. 

We have to consciously re-evaluate and recalibrate our culture

Into supporting the life we want and crave for.

May be that's what we are seeing with the 'great resignation.'

May be we are slowly coming to the realization 

That we've been, willingly and voluntarily, conning and cheating ourselves 

Off, the life we want.