Fear of Being Unproductive

Perhaps you know this feeling: the gnawing sense that you should be doing more, being more, achieving more. The voice in your head that never quite lets you rest, that turns every moment of pause into an opportunity for self-improvement. You wake up already thinking about your to-do list, fall asleep planning tomorrow’s optimizations, and spend your days in a constant state of productivity anxiety. The fear of being unproductive has become so central to your identity that you almost forget who you are without it. I worry that what masquerades as ambition is actually something more insidious: you have become both the exploiter and the exploited in your own life.

According to philosopher Byung-Chul Han, we now live in the “achievement society (2010).” You no longer need external authority figures to exploit you because you have learned to exploit yourself with forced positivity and ruthless efficiency.

Considering mental illness an individual chemical-biological problem has enormous benefits for capitalism. — Mark Fisher

Fear of Being Unproductive in the Achievement Society

Previous generations lived in a rather different world to what we have today. Their lives have relatively clear hierarchical structures, defined roles, and external sources of both authority and meaning. Back then…