The modern world glorifies productivity because busy people don’t ask dangerous questions like: “Is this life meaningful?” or “Who would I be without this constant motion?” In practice this means your worth becomes tied to output — your schedule, your tasks, your hustle — until you start fearing rest because rest forces you to confront the emptiness, resentment, grief, or longing buried underneath all the activity. A chronically busy person feels “responsible,” but in reality they are escaping the internal rearrangement that stillness would demand from them. Men drown themselves in work to avoid feeling; women drown themselves in responsibilities to avoid disappointing others — both lose themselves inside performance. The blade cuts deepest when you realize that productivity didn’t turn you into a better person — it turned you into someone too distracted to notice the parts of your life that are quietly collapsing.