Capitalism Wants Us to Love Productivity More Than Our Joy

Sitting in the hospital seems to provide me with an unusual amount of down time. Most of the day is spent waiting on doctors, waiting on nurses, waiting on a test of one sort or another, waiting on a treatment, waiting on visitors… waiting, waiting, waiting. Meanwhile, I am dead tired, and in a tremendous amount of pain. So why am I overwhelmed with feelings of shame and guilt around a perception of myself as “lazy” and lacking an ambition that would facilitate productivity during all of this “open” time?

Capitalism has taught me that every “free” moment is an opportunity to be productive. There is a reason that social media is filled with memes about sleeping when you’re dead. The idea being that those with a true work ethic would rather work than “waste” time with something like rest. After all, you can’t make money while you are sleeping, right? You can’t achieve, you can’t gain accolades, you can’t be acknowledged by the wider public if you are sleeping.

Work culture in the United States constantly berates us with the feeling that we are never doing enough. Eating, sleeping, moving slowly… these things have no value because of their connection to stillness.

But the question we have to ask ourselves is this; if we live in a culture that has no value for an intentional pause of activity, what does that do to our relationship with joy? Is it even a possibility? Better yet, is it realistic to expect the development of happiness in our lives if we devalue everything it takes to nurture it? After all, how could we possibly know the content of our own hearts if we never take time for introspection?

I constantly find myself overwhelmed with alternating feelings of guilt and shame whenever I am engaging in non-work activity. This includes activities that I have to participate in, but if I had a choice I would be doing something else. For the last 2.5 days here in the hospital I’ve been bereft with anxious feelings around how my time here will be perceived by my colleagues and students. Will they wish that they’d hired somebody without all of these health issues? Will my students complain about working with a professor who is in the hospital instead of answering emails at 9pm? Will other academics shake their heads with annoyance because I’m in the hospital instead of at a working group meeting?

When I sign into social media and scroll through the IG stories of friends, I beat myself up for not picking up a book instead. Every time I pick up my phone I think, “you might be in pain, but as long as you can open your eyes you could still be reading!” Social media has facilitated an unprecedented amount of interpersonal connection between people all over the world. Yet we endlessly shame ourselves for “wasting time on social media,” instead of appreciating the value it can add to our lives, relationships, and even happiness. Why don’t I make peace with the role social media plays in my life, and set aside dedicated time to check in with my friends everyday? Wouldn’t that be better for my spirit than the self-flagellation?

The reality is that shame has never been an emotion that has motivated me to create something beautiful, or transformative, let alone something brilliant. My best “work,” my best ideas, my best art, has always come in the midst of a daydream, after a long nap, or while I’m in the middle of reading a long essay I decided to read for the pure pleasure of it. Beauty begats beauty. Just like a rested mind has always been my prerequisite for truly imaginative, interesting, or yes productive, work.

The ironic thing about the graphic at the top of this blog is that I know dozens of adults who absolutely look back and remember the nights where they had an especially rested nights’ sleep. They can tell you all about the time and place, the bed, the sheets, probably even the the number of hours they got. Why? Because it is so rare that most of us are able to truly rest. Mostly because we are constantly worried and/or in a shame spiral about what has to be accomplished the moment we wake up. How many adults have you heard wryly shake their head in joking resentment towards toddlers who don’t appreciate scheduled nap time at school? It’s the same reason that companies are able to charge a fortune for “nap pods” where you pay them per hour to rest mid-day.

Ultimately, there is no glory to be had in running your mind and body into the ground. We can’t possibly hope to adequately appreciate the world around us, let alone the people in it, if we fail to consistently rest, walk slowly, nurture ourselves, as well as nurture our communities. While we may live in a culture that fetishistizes “the grind,” at all costs. I encourage you to take the time to clarify what your true values are. Will you look back and regret not staying up all night to build your clients website? Or will you regret not taking the time to develop a daily practice that nurtures your spirit and provides rest for your mind and body? I actually have no idea what matters most for, and to you. However I do know that it is critical that we all take the time to let go of the shame based productivity pressure, and instead discover the priorities of our heart(s).

peace.

a