The cult of 'busy'

In times that glorify the rise-and-grind, is 'busyness' becoming a badge of honour and exhaustion the proof of our worth?

- Harsh Kabra

When Vikram Dhar recently felt like ditching his screaming schedules and screens, he headed straight to his roots in the mountains.

Stretched ahead were seven days free of agendas, just chants etching across the hush of monasteries. The stillness stirred in him something familiar: the joy of truly 'being, not 'doing.

"As a mountain boy at heart, I find the rhythm of city life both thrilling and draining," says the international neuro-language programming (NLP) Master Coach and founder of the NLP Coaching Academy. "Like many, career and education pulled me into the urban culture, where being 'busy' is worn like a badge of honour and exhaustion celebrated as a proof of achievement."

Worshipping the hustle

That highlights a dire irony of our time: a breathless pursuit of exclusivity leaving us overwhelmed, and not just at the workplace. True, jobs are a deity hungry for tributes at all hours. But then staying on top of emails, social posts and WhatsApp messages lurking like obstinate mosquitoes even while we are catching precious Zs has become life-critical. Endless scrolling or binge-watching shows late into the night is a bragging feat. Like overzealous sheepdogs, we are busy shuttling our children between unceasing activities when we ourselves are not picking up a new language or fitness regimen. Our vacations are so action-packed that they can make even an Olympic triathlon break into a sweat.

With timetables denser than neutron stars, trading sleep for hustle, leisure for sundry devices, and sanity for the dopamine of nonstop online presence has come at a grim price exhaustion. More than life becoming a high-wire act, what is disconcerting is how we are turning fatigue into an endurance sport and "busyness" into a measure of our worth.

Fatigue fallout