I read this great post on productivity porn over at Bitches Get Riches a little while ago and I have been mulling it over ever since.

I flipping love productivity porn. It started early. Hints from Heloise was literally my favorite part of the newspaper as a kid. Who knows why 9 year old me just knew we needed to know five ways to get out wine stains, but I felt good about the fact that I did.

I even picked a career that thrives in the heart of productivity, productivity porn, and productivity advice giving.

And many times over the years, I have sat back and wondered, hold crap, why are we trying to do life at 110 miles per hour all the time?

And after my pause to ponder, I hop back into that fast lane.

But I am still super conflicted about it.

As a stage manager, I’ve seen (and I love that I see it) more and more conversation around mental health and self-care and all that but functionally, I see no slowing down.

Even this pandemic has actually only seemed to amp things up for most stage managers. Do you know how much content everyone has created during this time? How many very talented people are putting out webinars full of their hard earned info for free?

I feel like I have to leave this pandemic up to date on how to be a COVID/health tester, knowledgeable about intimacy direction, a better negotiator, well-informed about how to run corporate events, able to single-handedly destroy systemic racism in the theater industry, and capable of baking my own sourdough bread for the next company potluck.

And that’s just a taste of what’s running rampant in my stage manager social media circles.

Are we running from something when we just try to jam pack every second of our day?

Are we scared of stillness?

Is there not possibly some form of genuine productivity within stillness?

I mean, I am the pot calling the kettle black here.

I have definitely been a lump that stares at the wall some days in the last few months, especially the last two since becoming unemployed, but I have also worshipped at the altar of productivity.

I tried to learn Russian. I have watched a trigadillion webinars and seminars. I led a webinar on personal finance. I did 2 Instagram takeovers. I tried to write a book. I obtained like a dozen certificates. I took a well-being class. I tried to learn yoga and Bachata. I tried to learn how to meditate. I tried to learn how to cook artichokes. I tried to teach myself how to sing and play the keyboard at the same time.

I have literal piles of to-do lists that I live my life around.

And at the same time, there is a very loud voice in me that often thinks about buying a cabin deep in the woods and disappearing into it forever, only doing exactly what must be done each day to survive.

I’m also struck by the notion of being a “hard worker” and doing “hard work.”

Side note: I absolutely have that song from Fame stuck in my head right now, and while that was actually the most difficult and stressful tour I’ve ever done, I would actually kill to be calling that show right now. /side note

It feels so drilled in. It feels un-American to reject hard work. We’re a nation that seems to think our personal salvation revolves around working hard enough. If we can just put in enough work we’ll make it to — to what?

And don’t get me wrong. I like that narrative! I am in charge of how hard I work, so if that puts me in charge of my destiny, great. But the system is nonsense and this is not 100% how it works and honestly, we need a different way to look at things.

Hard work and grit all have their time and place, but tipping the scales totally in their favor is nuts. And I think what we consider “average” or “balanced” for those things in America is actually tipped way too far in favor of endless hard work.

Siestas are brilliant. Weeks of paid time off that are just standard in other countries – also brilliant. The idea that when you leave work, the work day ends and you’re not actually on call 24/7, also brilliant.

That being said, in the day to day of the pandemic, you do you to survive. And If you’re swinging wildly between the two, I’m right there with you these days.