How many times have you answered “How are you?” with “I’ve been really busy”? American culture prizes busyness. We associate activity with success — regardless of whether that activity is actually productive. Curiously, we also associate stress with success. When someone drops a significant stressor and experiences the freedom that comes as a result, often the person will feel that something’s amiss. The stress is replaced with anxiety that “I must not be doing enough.” But it’s an illusion. Long work hours and the stress that accompanies it don’t bring success. They trap you in a hamster wheel that takes you nowhere.
