The Cult of Being Busy

 I've been thinking lately - why do we all work so many hours?

The 8–9 hour workday began over a century ago during the industrial revolution, when humans were essentially operating factories and machines manually. Shouldn't working conditions have evolved by now?

We invented computers, software, automation, AI - all supposedly to make life easier and free up human effort. And yet somehow, despite all these technological advancements, modern work culture still expects people to stay "busy" for most of the day. 40–45 hour work weeks are somehow the base expectations. 

I think about this more and more as my experience as a professional grows.

We have Teams, Excel, PowerPoint, GenAI and countless tools that drastically reduce effort and time. Tasks that once took days or weeks can now be finished in hours. Yet workplaces still look down upon working only 3–4 productive hours a day. Anything less than endless engagement is treated almost like an absence.

Why is it so important for everyone to remain occupied for 8–9 hours every single day?

Why do people take pride in working overtime, or on weekends and holidays? Why is exhaustion worn like a badge of honour?

I feel that over the past century, we have unconsciously created a social structure where, regardless of technological progress, human labour remains the most exploited resource. Poor economies full of desperate workers only fuel the corporate machine further.

And yet we live in an age that glorifies competition. An age where meaning is often tied to relentless labour and outperforming others.

Why do we only value becoming "better" through working more? Why must people constantly showcase how hardworking they are just to justify their existence in a company? It's not as if billion-dollar corporations will collapse because one exhausted employee decided to go home at 4 PM.

Somewhere along the way, work stopped being merely a means of survival. It became identity. Morality. Self-worth.

A hardworking person is seen as disciplined, respectable and ambitious. Someone who rests too much is viewed suspiciously, almost as if relaxation itself requires justification.

And perhaps that is because modern society quietly conditions us to believe that our value must be earned continuously - a condition that worsens deeply in adulthood.

Careers become more than jobs. They become social identities. Entire personalities form around professions. People proudly announce how overworked they are, almost like battle scars proving importance.

"I barely slept." "I've been working nonstop." "I'm so busy these days."

These statements are no longer just complaints. They are status symbols.

Busyness has become the modern display of significance.

Capitalism naturally reinforces this cycle because economies benefit when humans tie their self-esteem to productivity. The ideal worker is not simply someone who works hard. It is someone who emotionally depends on work for validation. Such a person will willingly sacrifice health, relationships and inner peace because slowing down feels psychologically uncomfortable.

But humans were never designed to derive meaning from output alone.

Somewhere in this endless race to prove our worth, we forgot that life also consists of slowness, relationships, curiosity, art, silence, love, boredom and reflection.

The tragedy is not that people work hard. Meaningful work can be deeply fulfilling.

The tragedy is that many people no longer believe they deserve respect, rest or even existence without constant productivity.

And why don't we try becoming better at other things too? Becoming a better hobbyist. A better parent. A better friend.

I love self-improvement. I genuinely enjoy trying to become a better version of myself every day. But I do not want every waking moment of my existence to become an endless performance of productivity at work.

At the same time, I also understand the flaws in my own argument. A system built entirely on freedom and leniency only works when society itself becomes responsible enough not to misuse it. Any model that genuinely prioritizes human wellbeing requires a population that accepts that freedom with maturity, decency and self-discipline.

Unfortunately, we do not yet live in a society like that.

The Declining Art of Conversation

We meet to eat out.

We talk about the place. The food. The atmosphere. Memories emerge, aspirations too. That is often how conversations begin.

But the more we strip away from the setting, the less there seems to be to talk about.

A park invites fewer conversations than a café.
A road invites even fewer.
A concert invites far more.

Physical fullness inspires mental openness. The more objects, sounds, and sensations around us, the more our memories are stirred. We begin bringing up stories about ourselves, about others, about things we once experienced. Our imagination becomes more active too. We make plans, share ideas, speculate about the future.

Now imagine stripping all of that away. No stimulating environment. No memorable décor. No activity to fall back on. Nothing external to trigger memory or imagination.

For many of us, conversation suddenly becomes difficult. Almost impossible.

Another thing I have observed is how people stay close to familiar or “safe” kinds of people — people with whom they already share common interests, shared histories, or predictable subjects of discussion. We choose people who allow us to comfortably return to our own preferred topics and patterns. Once again, we do this because we want conversation to feel meaningful without requiring too much uncertainty.

All of this points toward something deeper: our inherent fear of opening up without support mechanisms.

A completely unfamiliar place, surrounded by people we do not understand, feels psychologically threatening. At that point, we can no longer rely on familiarity to carry the interaction. We must rely purely on curiosity and openness, hoping something meaningful emerges along the way.

It is like walking into darkness with nothing but a flashlight, hoping to eventually find light.

Most people quietly avoid this entirely. Not intentionally, but instinctively. They spend their lives staying within familiar conversational territories. They visit the places they already enjoy. They spend time with loved ones in predictable ways. Their relationships become confined to a fixed set of activity types where only superficial variety exists.

For example, trying different restaurants instead of learning a new recipe together.

The art of conversation, in many ways, is about eliminating this subconscious fear. It is about attaining the same openness even without social lubricants.

Because eventually, this becomes important in every deep relationship.

You cannot forever rely on surroundings to compensate for what is lacking between two people. Over time, dependence on those surroundings grows. And without them, people begin to feel strangely lost with one another.

This is where many relationships quietly begin to falter.

As people grow closer, the opportunities to rely on these conversational crutches naturally decrease. You revisit the same places too many times. Or you simply begin spending most of your time in the same environment. In romantic relationships, people may eventually begin living together.

And a home, unlike a restaurant or a concert, offers very little external novelty. It is a place where memories are created — not where endless stimuli already exist waiting to sustain interaction. Unless one lives inside a historic castle, there is rarely enough surrounding novelty to continuously carry conversation on its own.

This is where discomfort slowly seeps in.

People begin feeling emotionally drained in each other’s presence. Couples often describe this as “drifting apart.” But sometimes, what has actually disappeared is not affection — it is the ability to meaningfully engage without external stimulation constantly carrying the interaction forward.

We begin to feel cramped in the company of the same human being because we no longer know how to explore each other beyond activities, places, routines, and distractions.

I believe our increasingly self-confined lifestyle worsens this problem further.

We now possess devices that allow us to peer into the world without truly stepping into it. We can speak to countless people across the globe without developing the social courage or conversational depth required in real-world interaction. Even when sitting beside loved ones, these devices offer convenient escape routes from the effort real communication demands.

Because genuine conversation requires uncertainty. It requires exploration. It requires risking awkwardness.

And most modern comforts are designed precisely to eliminate those feelings.

This is where the true ability to converse becomes important:
the ability to speak about our thoughts without needing external stimulation,
the ability to openly discuss what genuinely occupies our minds,
the courage to express ourselves even imperfectly.

Our thoughts will not always translate cleanly into words.
Our words will not always communicate exactly what we intend.

But that is precisely how conversation deepens. That is how human understanding improves.

And perhaps that ability brings a form of personal harmony unlike anything else.

In fact, I believe we should sometimes take an even more radical approach. From the very beginning, we should strip away the comfort of convenient surroundings. Let awkwardness exist. Approach uncomfortable topics. Sit with silence instead of fleeing from it.

Because that is often where we encounter the real selves of people.

And perhaps that is where we rediscover how much we can truly know about another human being simply by talking to them — rather than endlessly talking about food, clothes, places, aesthetics, or “vibes.”

Idée fixe of Identity

Who are you? It is a question we ask ourselves — consciously or subconsciously — every single day. It is also a question the world asks us every day. Maybe not in those exact words, but every interaction we have with the outside world and every internal dialogue we have with ourselves is anchored to this one fundamental idea of human existence: Who am I?

When someone casually asks, “How was your weekend?”, the answer seems simple. But even in that ordinary exchange, identity quietly takes the center stage. You think about what you did and choose how to present it. You may tell the truth, exaggerate, lie, or avoid the question altogether. And each of those responses requires you to confront who you are — or at least who you believe yourself to be.

Are you someone outgoing who spends weekends socializing? Or someone who enjoys a quiet day at home? Are you honest by nature? Private? Performative? Reserved? Every choice we make in expression, behaviour, and communication contributes to the construction of our individual and social selves.

Where we come from, what we enjoy, what we hate, what we believe, how we react, what we desire — through every internal and external interaction, we are constantly trying to answer the question of who we are. Each decision forms a small fragment of what we call ‘identity’. And the repetition of those decisions in recognizable patterns slowly forms what we perceive as our “unique self.”

But what causes us to make the choices we do? And how consistent are we really with them? These questions eventually lead many of us toward a deeper contemplation: What is our real self, if such a thing even exists?

When asked, “Who are you?”, we usually respond with our name, age, birthplace, profession, or family background. But most of these are merely circumstances — not conscious choices. I believe we are defined far more accurately by our interests, opinions, actions, and patterns of behaviour. Yet even those things evolve over time.

And if they evolve, does identity come with an expiry date?

At this point, some may think of the famous philosophical thought experiment: the Ship of Theseus. If every single part of a ship is gradually replaced over time, does it remain the same ship? Likewise, if our beliefs, habits, desires, and personalities slowly change throughout life, are we still the same person we once were?

Beyond endless philosophical contemplation, I believe identity is also one of the greatest sources of human suffering. Our identity not only shapes who we are — it also traps us within the boundaries of who we think we are supposed to be. Especially when we cling too tightly to our idea of the self.

In many ways, identity can become a bane to human existence. We continuously cling to the things that once made us feel defined. Perhaps we read one remarkable book years ago and deeply enjoyed it, so we begin to see ourselves as “an avid reader.” And now we keep reading — not necessarily out of love, but to maintain that image of ourselves.

We performed well academically in school, and suddenly we feel compelled to remain the smartest person in every room we enter. We were once known as the artistic one in college, so now creativity becomes an expectation we must constantly fulfill. If we once preferred sweets over savoury food, people begin to expect us to always order dessert.

Slowly, identity transforms from self-expression into obligation.

If one were to argue that expectations — from both ourselves and others — are the source of suffering, then identity is the bow that launches the arrow.

And yet, despite all this, identity remains essential. Our personal, social, and professional lives require a certain degree of continuity in order to function. Without some stable sense of self, human relationships and responsibilities would collapse into chaos.

But when identity hardens into an idée fixe — a single, persistent idea that dominates the mind obsessively — it ceases to become grounding and instead becomes a cage.

The moment we begin treating our identity as something rigid and permanent, it starts becoming a source of pain. We suffer not because we change, but because we resist change in order to preserve a narrative of who we think we are supposed to be.

Perhaps the only way to reduce this suffering is not by abandoning identity altogether — because that may be impossible — but by allowing it to evolve. To constantly reshape our beliefs, perceptions, and sense of self as the narrative of our lives changes with time.

As Friedrich Nietzsche suggested, identity should be fluid, self-created, and continuously overcome — not frozen into a single narrative. Aside from questionable ideas about facial hair, I believe the man really had something figured out about human existence.