I’m scared of downtime. That’s right, relaxation is downright uncomfortable for me. Part of me craves it like every other human being. Yet as soon as it is here, I twitch. I pace the house. I don’t know what to do with my hands and my legs — even more importantly, my brain. Sometimes the quiet space is too intolerable so I fill it with mindless activities like scouring Facebook or checking how many Twitter followers I have.
My busyness is, at times, a defense mechanism whereby I can prove that I matter and deserve a place among the human race. My brain somehow associates productivity with intelligence, worthiness, and popularity. To-do lists decrease the risk of my annihilation. The more responsibilities, the more emails to return, the stronger the reassurance that I will survive as a middle-aged woman living in Annapolis, Maryland.
Sound crazy? I’m not alone.
Tim Kreider calls it the “busy trap.” In his New York Times piece, he writes, “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”
But it comes at a cost.
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