There is a form of restlessness that can look remarkably productive from the outside. I know it well. Just one more thing to finish, one more message to answer, one more small task to organise, one more thing to read that could easily wait until tomorrow. The day is already full, and yet somehow there is always another task that can be squeezed in. For a long time, I saw this mainly as diligence. Today, I find myself wondering more often whether keeping busy can sometimes be a very elegant way of avoiding certain inner moments. As long as there is something to do, I do not necessarily have to feel what appears when nothing more is being asked of me.
I find it striking how naturally being busy has become part of everyday life. Someone with a great deal to do can appear in demand, active and important. A full diary can almost seem like proof that one’s life has meaning. I know that feeling too. When I complete something, I immediately feel that I am moving forwards. I can see a result, tick something off and know what I am supposed to be doing. Empty time is far less clear. It offers no task and no immediate feedback. Suddenly, I am no longer the person who is getting things done, organising or achieving something. I am simply there. And this simple state of being can feel surprisingly unfamiliar.
Over time, I have noticed that busyness does not only meet external demands. It also regulates something within me. As long as my mind is filled with tasks, there is less room for anything else. An uncomfortable decision can wait. A disappointment moves into the background. A sense of loneliness, dissatisfaction or exhaustion is easier to overlook when the next appointment is already beginning. That does not mean that every full day is an escape from ourselves. That would be far too simple. But I have certainly experienced periods in my own life when I preferred creating new tasks to truly listening to an inner state.
Small empty spaces in particular often show me how deeply this habit has taken hold. There used to be waiting times when I would simply stand or sit somewhere. Today, I can fill almost every gap. One glance at my phone is enough and there are messages, information, images or something else to occupy my attention. Even a few minutes no longer have to remain empty. That is convenient, but it changes something too. I hardly ever have to experience what my own inner rhythm feels like when no new stimulation is being added. The moment does not become difficult because it is inherently empty. Often, it is difficult only because I have become so accustomed to something always happening.
I have found that there is not always something dramatic hidden beneath this restlessness. It does not have to be a suppressed life crisis. Often, it is far more ordinary. Tiredness I do not want to admit. A thought I do not want to follow through. The feeling that I have actually done enough for quite some time. Or the quiet question of whether everything I fill my day with still truly suits me. Precisely these simple perceptions can be uncomfortable because they do not immediately demand a solution. They simply remain there. Busyness, by contrast, immediately gives me a role again. I am doing something, and for a moment I do not have to concern myself with who I am when that doing falls away.
I also see a connection here with our sense of self-worth. We live in an environment in which achievement is easily measured. Work, projects, goals, reach, appointments and results can all be shown. Stillness is difficult to display. An afternoon in which I have done nothing productive carries very little prestige in the language we are used to. Precisely because of this, busyness can quietly become a form of validation. I may need it not only because tasks have to be completed, but because it gives me the feeling that I am useful. Once I recognise this, the question becomes uncomfortable: does my worth really depend on how much I have achieved in a day?
At this point, the subject also connects for me with I – Your Best Liar. In the book, I explore the subtle stories through which we make our own behaviour seem plausible. Busyness is particularly well suited to this because society views it so positively. I can tell myself that I simply carry a great deal of responsibility, that there is no time for myself at the moment or that things simply cannot be any different right now. All of that may be true. And yet there can be a second truth beneath it. Perhaps the fullness of my life is also preventing me from looking more closely. I find precisely this overlap interesting. For me, self-deception does not mean that everything I tell myself has to be false. Often, one part of the story is simply so loud that the other can barely be heard.
The older I get, the more my relationship with unused time has begun to change. In the past, I was quicker to see it as something that needed to be filled. Today, I am more interested in what happens when I do not immediately intervene. Sometimes it takes a while for the inner speed to slow down. Thoughts keep moving, the urge to get up and do something appears, and suddenly I remember things that supposedly need to be done urgently. If I do not immediately follow these first impulses, my perception often begins to change. Not dramatically, and not always pleasantly. But more honestly. I become more aware of how I actually am, what is occupying me and what I may have been avoiding for some time.
And then there are those rare moments when nothing more needs to be done and this does not feel like a lack. No goal, no next item, no need to make the moment meaningful immediately. I no longer experience such moments as wasted time. They feel more like places in life where, for a moment, I am not defined by what I achieve. Perhaps that is exactly why busyness can be so seductive. It keeps us moving and, in doing so, spares us from the quieter and much harder question of what remains of us when there is nothing we need to do.