The Day My Productivity Disappeared
How Chronic Illness Forced Me to Rethink Busyness, Purpose, and Self-Worth
I have been sick since 2021, never fully recovering from a Covid infection. It has left me with little energy, a foggy brain, and reduced mobility. Some people call it Long Covid or Covid Syndrome. I’ve also had it diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For me, none of those labels truly capture what my daily life looks like.
The illness itself is challenging, but I’ve learned to manage it with mobility aids and by becoming an expert in pacing. What I’ve found far more difficult, though, is the constant pressure to be productive.
A Culture Obsessed with Doing
The Western world is built around busyness. I mean, really built around it.
Ask someone today how they are, and chances are they’ll reply, “I’m really busy.” But that doesn’t actually tell you anything about how they feel. We’ve been conditioned to equate our worth with how much we produce — daily, monthly, and even over a lifetime.
That’s how our world is set up: a never-ending parade of distractions, obligations, and opportunities to be busy. And beneath all this busyness, there’s a deeper fear, one most of us don’t even realise we have.
The Fear of Being Forgotten
Why do we push ourselves to exhaustion? Why do we glorify packed schedules?
Because we want to be remembered for something after we’re gone. We want to create, build, or achieve something that lasts. The worst thing we can imagine is disappearing without a trace. So, we get on board with the busyness agenda, filling our days with endless to-do lists, money to earn, and possessions to acquire.
A few years ago, I decided to test this theory.
Every time I had the chance, I asked people, “How are you?” — not “How busy are you?” but “How are you, really?”
Nine times out of ten, they responded with a version of, “I have so much to do today.” Without fail. I found myself doing it too — almost as if it were a competition. The unspoken goal was to prove who had the fullest, most productive life.
When My Productivity Disappeared Overnight
Then, in 2021, my productivity was reduced to zero overnight.
Suddenly, when people asked me, “What do you do?” I had no idea what to say. Because, by society’s standards, I was doing nothing, and that was tough. Not just because physically I couldn’t do the things I wanted to, but because in a world where our value is measured by busyness, I felt like a failure.
The Lie of Busyness and the Truth I Found Instead
It has taken me four years to realise that the busyness agenda is a lie.
Look at any survey conducted in the Western world over the past decade, and you’ll find that happiness is declining while loneliness is skyrocketing. We are the most unhappy civilisation we have ever been, and yet, nobody is asking why.
Over the past four years, I have discovered that while my body is still weary and in pain, mentally, I am more grounded and in touch with life than ever before. I am NEVER busy! It’s countercultural even to write that, and I don’t care.
Try This for Fun…
Next time someone asks you how busy you are, try responding with:
“I’m not busy at all.”
I guarantee the silence will be awkward, but it will also be strangely fun and a little bit of pushback to a world gone mad.
This resonates so heavily for me. Thank you for writing about it!