🤔 Is productivity really killing us slowly?

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productivity-really-killing-us-slowly

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Apr 19, 2023 10:44 AM

We answer work emails on Monday morning, and we reply to our colleague’s direct messages on Slack, MSTeams in the midst of the morning. We read a lot of books about how to hack our lives to achieve more productivity & achievement, we read endless articles about how to hack our brains to achieve more insight, and we spend our remaining time each day doing something prestigious just to achieve what we really want. We are overworked and overstressed, constantly dissatisfied, and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher.

For generations, we have made ourselves miserable while we’ve worked, we have driven ourselves for so long that we’ve forgotten where we are going, even though we know what to do. But really? is everyone know what they are doing right now? or what they were doing is something that they can’t let go of and let out of life? or even they're doing something that they’ve been promised to get something. We have lost our capacity for “light-heartedness and play”, here’s the bottom line: We are lonely, sick, and suicidal

WHO (World Health Organization) research has shown us 1 in every 3 adults got depression, and every new survey emerges showing more people are isolated and depressed than the year before. All of you, who might read this known as “over-achievers” person, you must been always driven right?.

Driven is not quite the same as ambitious, and it has slightly different meaning that aggresive. I think driven is something that “always” motivated yourself by saying, “I would do better today, and make my day tomorrow weight-less”, if it was only by a slight fraction of an ounce. It felt very guilty, if you can’t do what your “Driven” really want. Not to mention, your drive might helped you succeed in life. It sustained you through everything, through your childhood, parenthood, career, college life, or even your physical-injury and many more. But at some point, drive became inextricably intertwined with dread: dread that all of your work and effort would never be enough.

Whether you’re learning new programming languages in the night after some work, doing your part-time 20hours per week job as Software Engineer to get more passive income, learning how to use English properly for your overseas master-degree, working out twice a day as a gym rat or working overtime as a Lawyer in a law firm, we always seeking something in our life to be more efficient and make our life easier. But, we never realize we’re killing ourselves with productivity.

Modern society leads us to believe that high productivity is the most important thing in life. The key here wasn’t the productivity itself, but doing productivity means; do a lot in a less time. Our obsession with being efficient is rooted in our past, look around, and you can see that people seem to be more and more productive. Everyone is busier than ever and reaching for more and more ambitious goals. You started as an Associate Software Engineer, 4 years has been passed by, then you meet your old friend, talk about life, talk about career, surprisingly your friend now a Lead Engineer, you start to doubting your life, you still in your Senior Engineer era. You feel like you are a labor to the other “over-achiever”, you feel like you are a sidestep for the “over-achiever” to climb up more, and it was triggering you to achieve more, to gain more, to get something you didn’t know if it was what you want.

One part of the problem is that social media allows us to see the accomplishments of others and leads us to want to “keep it up.”, I don't hate technology, and I do not want to live either in the past, but it’s not just technology that’s changed over the course of time; it’s also lifestyle and quality of life. If you’ve found that you are constantly adding to your to-do list or are hoping for more hours in the day, chances are you’re probably becoming part of the “cult of efficiency.” In this cult, the busier you are, the better. And it’s only getting worse. But this obsession isn’t entirely new, it’s already happened up until two hundred years ago.

We always feel guilty about our relaxation, miss out on meaningful connection on people, we tend to forgot how to enjoy our life. All of you might agree on this, and yes! We only live to work, I do work as a full-time Software Engineer approx 45 hours per week or more, took a part-time Software Engineer approx 20 hours per week, and do some business that I can’t count the hours in a week just to make my life better of course. I had only 103 hours left in a week, I spent only 6 hours to sleep in a day, now I only had 61 hours. I can calculate again, I spend every night approx 30 minutes — 1 hour/day to learn something, either reading books, writing medium like this, do stuff that will increase my value as a professional. At the end, I only had 51 hours left my time in a week, and I still feel guilty about it if I'm not spend it wisely. Rest of it, I spend to hangout with my friends, my family, playing some games, or even do nothing laying on my bed. At the moment, I was thinking there’s something wrong in my life, I do live my best at now, but I don’t feel satisfied enough.

I was always driven enough, to be a better professional in my previous company, I do everything what I want, I tried my best to show it to my colleagues, Im putting a lot effort on this so I deserve better than anyone, until up 1 moment what I was looking for is not fame, is not money. I tried to change up my mind, my though at one morning. All I do is to pursuit my ego, I know living on ego is the best time of your life. But, I might be wrong on the way im doing it, I'm to pushy on myself, and I forgot how to relax and do it leisurely. So I tried something different way, I develop new habits that better suit my innate need, my thirst for companionship, and my ability to imagine incredible things through focused mind. I know that, to bring my new paradigm will require a substantive change in my personal priorities and, ultimately, new economic priorities and policies as well.

It is past time to let go of the idea that I deserve stability and comfort only if I spend most of my time waking hours at work. Is this not what I want actually, especially for my children and my future generations to live?, or do I wish for them more space to breathe, to relax, to reflect, to enjoy the company of others? What is the world I envision for myself and the ones I love?.

Ultimately, this is an ethical question for all of you, In a study of published journal, the psychologists Tim Kasser and Kennon Sheldon laid out the evidence showing that higher pay doesn’t result in a happier life and pondered what to do with that information. Human beings are social animals who are at their best when they connect with one another, collaboration is our superpower, perhaps we can create a culture in which relationships are prioritized instead of productivity. Human beings have a great capacity for joy.

While it may feel that the forces that have brought us to this era — time pressure, intense productivity, and obsessive efficiency — are too strong and pervasive to be countered, the truth is everything is relatively recent. We can choose to be thrive not only to be drive.

I was trying to improve my own life, and I know haven’t achieved 100% on that. But in the end, my writing isn’t really about me or my opinion, It was the reflection of a hard-work culture that made me believe and I was getting into it.

We have changed our environment more quickly than we know how to change ourselves, when you don’t create things, you become depend on your tastes rather than ability, your tastes only narrow and exclude people.

There’s one aspect of early human history I hope I can reclaim, It is our reflective though that make us unique and strong. Descartes said, “Cogito ergo sum”: I think, therefore I am. He did not say, “Laboro ergo sum”: I work, therefore I am. More than two hundred years ago, the rules were rewritten. It’s time to rewrite them again

Thankyou, for reading my reflection and here I am, your opinionated stranger