I’m Busy, But Not With Anything That Matters

I’m busy. Constantly. My calendar is full, my notifications never stop, and somehow none of it feels connected to anything I actually care about. It’s impressive, really—how much time I can spend doing things without moving an inch closer to the life I tell myself I want.

I answer emails quickly. I show up on time. I check boxes like it’s a competitive sport. From the outside, this looks like momentum. From the inside, it feels like pacing in a waiting room that never calls my name.

I keep saying I’ll get to the important stuff when things slow down. That’s the lie. Things don’t slow down. They just get replaced. One obligation dissolves and another slides neatly into its place, like the universe is allergic to empty space and I’m more than happy to cooperate.

Busy is socially acceptable. Busy is admirable. No one questions busy. If you say you’re overwhelmed, people nod like that’s proof you’re doing something right. Productivity has become a moral trait, and I’ve learned how to perform it convincingly.

The problem is that none of this busyness requires me to make a real decision.

Real decisions are inconvenient. They ask questions I can’t multitask my way out of. They demand trade-offs, clarity, and the uncomfortable acknowledgment that choosing one thing means actively not choosing another. Staying busy lets me delay that reckoning indefinitely.

Somewhere along the line, I confused motion with progress. They look similar from a distance. Both involve effort. Both are exhausting. But only one actually changes anything.

I fill my days with tasks that feel necessary but not meaningful. Things that keep the system running without asking what the system is for. I tell myself I’m laying groundwork. Preparing. Positioning. All words that translate loosely to not yet.

When I finally stop—usually late at night, when distraction options run thin—the thoughts I’ve been outrunning catch up fast. Questions surface without warning.

Is this what you meant to build?

Who benefits from you staying this distracted?

What are you avoiding by staying occupied?

I don’t love those questions, so I get busy again.

There’s a strange comfort in exhaustion. If I’m tired enough, I don’t have to think too hard. Fatigue blurs the edges of dissatisfaction. It gives me an excuse not to interrogate my choices too closely. Who has the energy for an existential crisis after twelve hours of being “on”?

The scary part is how normal this feels. How easy it is to slip into a rhythm where days blur together, marked only by deadlines and minor victories that don’t linger. I’m not unhappy exactly. I’m just… anesthetized.

I tell myself this is temporary. That once I clear this hurdle, finish this phase, hit this milestone, things will open up. That’s another lie—one I’ve reused often enough to recognize the handwriting. There’s always another hurdle. Another phase. Another milestone that promises relief and delivers maintenance instead.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I let myself be bored. Truly bored. No screens. No tasks. No productive distractions masquerading as responsibility. Just space. Silence. The kind where uncomfortable truths tend to show up uninvited.

That thought alone makes me uneasy, which probably answers the question.

I don’t think the issue is laziness or lack of ambition. If anything, it’s misdirected effort. All this energy poured into keeping things afloat instead of steering anywhere specific. I’m so focused on managing the day-to-day that I’ve outsourced my long-term direction to inertia.

And inertia is a terrible architect.

I know there’s a version of my life that requires less explaining. Less justifying. Less “this is just how things are right now.” A version that feels aligned instead of merely occupied. The frustrating part is that I can almost see it, which makes my current avoidance harder to excuse.

Busyness has become my favorite hiding place. It looks responsible. It sounds impressive. It keeps people from asking deeper questions, including myself.

I don’t have a dramatic ending here. No sudden revelation or productivity hack that fixes everything. What I do have is a growing suspicion that if I don’t start choosing what deserves my time, everything else will keep choosing for me.

And it already has.