There is a fine line between being productive and being busy. We know for a fact that productivity is highly connected to and useful for one's mental health. Idle mind brings up all the negative thoughts and a productive day gets you rid of it all.
Though society sometimes might not differentiate between over-occupying yourself and leading a productive life, I beg to differ. In my opinion, not only a lazy mind but also a severely busy life can bring you different sorts of mental issues -- such as anxiety, depression, etc.
Sometimes, people have a hard time with confrontations; that might be in case of confronting other people, situations, or even their own feelings. When you go through a difficult time such as losing someone close, or being betrayed by a trusted one, or even facing a reality that you were not clear about before, we often have a habit of avoiding confronting those feelings and try to pretend that all is good.
To steer clear of those suppressed feelings of anger or sadness, we try to overbook ourselves so that we do not get enough time to think these thoughts.
In a drama I was watching, called 'It's Okay to Not Be Okay,' someone said something like “Your body is honest. When you're in physical pain, you cry. But the heart is a liar. It stays quiet even if it's hurting.” It shook me to my core, and I realized how much we manipulate our hearts to even feel anything or how little we allow it to speak up.
However, when we don't act upon our actual feelings and try to avoid them, they tend to get bottled up and worsen as every moment passes. As a result, we end up being busy as well as stressed, depressed, and even unmotivated at times; which leads to unproductive or unsuccessful work. Thus we can see how busyness is not actually helping us overcome our mental health issues; instead it's making it worse, even affecting our daily activities and slowing our pace down.
At the early stages of our lives, we all heard the story of the rabbit and the tortoise. However, we never actually got the real lesson from that story, and even if we did, we never really implemented it in our lives. The actual goal of that story was to teach us that we are different individuals and we all have our own pace, our fair share of experiences, and our different ways of approaching life. We need to accept as well as embrace this individuality.
But we don't really do that. On the contrary, we have a tendency of comparing ourselves with each other and keep competing even if we are not in the same field. If it's not us who is pushing our standards, it's definitely the society; because there will always be people who do not know your worth, your potential, or even have your best interest in mind. So they end up making you feel less by comparing you with others who are "better" than you.
This constant need to prove yourself becomes a toxic addiction with no end. A healthy competition keeps you on your toes and is good for reaching one's goal. On the other hand, when that competitive behaviour never ends and you keep jumping from one competitor to other, you never settle and never become happy with yourself, and that becomes a problem. It makes you feel less confident; you don't love yourself the way you should, and you keep pushing yourself even if you don't know what exactly you want.
Then there is this addiction to that rewarding feeling you get when you do something successful. For instance, when you do well in a course, get a degree, or get promoted, you don't want to give up on that feeling even for a little bit of time. You feel that allowing yourself to have some free time will lessen your worth, and you will not deserve those rewards you get by doing hard work.
According to Jaime Bloch, the founder of MindMovers Psychology, we have a tendency of chasing everything -- we don't want to miss out on anything at all. In 2004 the world was introduced to this unique expression called FoMO, which means Fear of Missing Out. This behaviour actually includes two steps of action: First is being aware of missing out on any occasion, which leads to an obsessive need to act upon that feeling by clinging on to maintain those connections and occasions. In the end, we overbook or over pack our schedules to stay up-to-date with everything going on in the world.
Emotional well-being is not related to just our mental health, it also affects our physical health, our relationships, and our way of viewing the world. When we take too much stress, sometimes even beyond our capacity, our physical well-being is affected, causing reactions like headaches, unstable bowel movement, insomnia, fatigue, muscle tension, etc.
Furthermore, we no longer have time for a healthy lifestyle, like doing daily exercises or healthy food consumption, because of our hectic schedules. Eventually, we start losing or gaining weight unintentionally; which is neither normal nor healthy.
Quality time with our friends and family every now and then is a necessity for us as social beings. It appears that we don't have that time anymore because of our tight, unhealthy lifestyles. Hence, our stressed, depressed, lonely life makes us full of negative energy. We start looking at the world and everything happening around us with that energy and become easily irritated, lose creativity, empathy, or sympathy for others.
From my point of view, an excess of anything is bad -- whether that's inactivity or heavy activity. There should be a balance in life. Happiness and success mean something different to every individual. Our target should be achieving our goal, and that is mental peace. Be happy with whatever you are doing and be fulfilled. There will always be someone better than you; you should only focus on becoming the best version of yourself.
And most of all, never overlook your mental health; it is just as important as your physical health -- if not more.
Aadeeba Shaheed Aantara is a freelance contributor.
