The Lack of Worth in Busyness
Therapists often encourage clients to move towards things like slowing down, taking space, rest or blah blah blah. Those things are actually all really good things, but I realize in myself I can often treat them as if they are more like “blah blah blah” than solid health practices. Some weeks, I sit with far more clients than I really should, I convince myself that instead of taking an unpaid hour for lunch that I can eat my whole lunch in the seven minutes between sessions (in truth, I can do this, but that doesn’t make it healthy), or I still schedule a 9am session even when I’m getting home from a trip at 3am.
In today’s day and age, it is easy to pursue a “rise and grind” mindset. I have a number of clients who have tried to define worth by how hard they work, the number of zeros in their bank account, or the letters they find behind their name. These clients have come into my office because at some point, usually after they have a lot of zeros in their bank account and some significant letters behind their name, they realize there’s still something missing. As I sit with these clients, obviously each story is unique, but the theme that runs through each story is that somewhere along the way, they became convinced that success is the most important thing, but they now have realized quite the opposite.
I don’t think we realize how easy it is to fall into this trap. I make a living off of it, I see it all the time, and, as I write this, I can’t help but see the ways that I have bought into it as well. The thing about success being the most important thing in your life is that it will always leave you wanting more. It is insatiable. 21st century America would gladly have you convinced success will leave you satisfied, but it is ultimately going to leave you still hungering.
So how do you address this? Quiet. Stillness. Rest. Listening. Slowing down. Questioning. This is ultimately what therapy allows for. Anxiety attacks, hospitalizations, and seemingly freak medical issues can all be our bodies way of communicating to us that something isn’t working. If we’re wise enough to listen to this, we can start to figure out that success can never be our ultimate fulfillment. We can start to see that grinding as hard as we can, to be as successful as possible, is never going to leave us satisfied. So, what are the things I have seen clients become satisfied by? Watching their son’s little league game without taking a phone call, laughing with their spouse, saying “no” to the work event instead of “no” to what they really wanted to do, choosing their loved ones over perceived success. These are the type of things that truly satisfy.
