Yes. I call constantly wanting to do more and being more "productive" an epidemic! We became living only for work and forgot that we have another life outside of it! We also forget that it's taking away a huge chunk of our mental health too! So here are my thoughts about this topic.
The current culture of constantly being busy and hustling is dangerously detrimental to our mental and emotional health and it’s an epidemic!
Think about it, constantly working and having no rest in the name of being productive makes our minds not rest enough and recharge. Our minds basically become like a smartphone battery that’s never allowed to recharge beyond that critically low 5%! We all know how smartphones perform in that low battery mode; you can even make them go into power saving mode which makes their performance even more limited!
What I’m saying is: our brains become unable to function in their full capacity and so, our performance decreases and we don’t really get much done as we like to think we are. Yes, we’re working but our concentration and speed suffer tremendously.
This constant state of overworking causes a host of health problems both mental and physical. Chronic aches and pains, stress, and depression are some of them. We all know how dangerous depression is, so shouldn’t we at least reconsider the way we’re working and our workload? I mean, why is being productive more important than an employee’s mental health?! Isn’t that employee the one who’s gonna keep working for you? Don’t you want them to be in their best condition to get you the best results? This quest to be as productive as possible is an epidemic that needs to be faced head on.
Here’s the deal: we live to enjoy life, not to be salves to work!
We’re living to enjoy life, not to do nothing but work! I mean, we have a lot of things to do other than work like house chores, taking care of kids or pets, time with family and friends…etc. These are the most important things in life, not creating the best smartphone in the market as fast as possible!
Someone said that the areas of like are like the balls that a clown juggles; the balls are all made from glass except for career, it’s made form plastic. If you don’t keep the balance, you might break the balls of health, relationships, or even all of them for the sake of career which is made from plastic! and if it fell, it won’t really matter cause it’s not gonna be harmed at all!
Benefits of a slower, more balanced pace:
Actually, slowing down has benefits for the brain, creativity, and productivity.
1- A slower, more balanced pace allows for clutter and stress free mind. Recharging ourselves by not having anything to do, or think about, will regain back our full productive bandwidth because we’re charging till 100% so to speak. Just like a rested field gives bountiful crops, we’ll actually be more productive than if we didn’t allow ourselves to rest! Not to mention it will keep our mental and emotional health in check.
2- When you have nothing to do, usually your mind will wander and that’s when the magic happens: creative ideas hit you out of nowhere and you wonder “why didn’t I think of that before?” well, the answer is because your mind was overworked that there was no space to receive those awesome ideas! I mean, if both of your hands are full, you don’t have an extra hand to hold anything else, do you? You have to let go of what you’re holding so you can hold something else.
Conclusion:
I don’t mean to say that we should be lazy, what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t prioritize work over other things in our life or over our energy and mental health. The human mind needs to rest and relax to be able to keep going and to be creative, it's a human thing, we're not machines!