Busyness becomes an identity when life falls apart. When everything personal is in freefall, the one thing you can control is output. You don’t heal; you deliver. The calendar becomes armour. A full day means you didn’t have to feel anything. Productivity becomes your way of healing. Grieving too, sometimes.
I have started to treat productivity as a painkiller in a way that even when my body tells me to stop, I don’t. That results in exhaustion, a poor sleep cycle, and I still keep going. I have been using the normal healing process as evidence against myself when I lag even a tad.
Funny incident – I had an interview the other day in the city, and I fell asleep in the cab while I was on the way. Not so funny anymore when I fell sick the next day. Made me realise I let my body and mind get exhausted on purpose. I get angry when I fall sick. I blame myself, saying, “How can I fall sick when I have so much to deal with?”
I stay at my partner’s over the weekend, and I feel guilty about taking some time off or deciding not to do chores on one of the days. I feel guilty seeing him make my morning coffee while I am still in bed. I know in my head that I am not doing anything wrong, but the conditioning from my past relationship is so strong that I still can’t get it out of my system.
Productivity is the most socially acceptable way to avoid grief. Nobody questions a woman who’s working hard. They celebrate her. Which makes it the perfect hiding place. You’re not avoiding your life, you’re “building your career.” But somehow, grieving while being productive wasn’t a step I should have taken. That cost me my health, in a pretty big way. And I did not get my health checked unless I was made redundant and lost my hiding place.
This entire mechanism of using productivity as a painkiller started when I moved countries in my 30s. Some people say I have been milking that cow a little too much these days. But I feel that’s where it started. Don’t get me wrong – it’s taught me so much in a positive way and made me realise how much I love Sydney, and its peace. Moving countries in your 30s is an identity crisis no one warns you about. You arrive with a CV and no context, no connections, no friends – just a 23 Kg suitcase (3 in my case). No one knows what you’ve built back home, what your status was, or what you’ve achieved. You start from zero – professionally, socially, emotionally – while pretending you’re absolutely fine. Rebuilding in a new city means building everything simultaneously: career, friendships, identity, home. There’s no inherited support system. No family down the road. No old friends who remember who you were before. You are constructing every single part of your life at the same time. Productivity is the scaffolding holding it all up.
When someone abandons you in a foreign country, survival mode looks like ambition. Survival is not a choice that you make out of want or need. It’s because you have to. You don’t have the luxury of falling apart. Rent is due. Visa status matters. The job search can’t wait. So, you move. Fast. Constantly. Because stopping means the reality catches up.
One day your ex-husband tells you – the day to leave India has been finalised while you are at work, and your life: in that moment, changes. And like any good wife, I decided to leave 30 years of my life to move to Sydney. Mindlessly looked for work, found one, and moved to Sydney in 3 weeks! I thought that was an achievement, until the good wife move turned its back on me. And again, the damn productivity made me survive the change until I was abandoned.
The advertising industry rewards overwork – which makes it the perfect enabler. And that was my smoking gun: to build my life after being abandoned. Looked for an apartment, moved out, and drowned myself in work. Late nights are normal. Weekends on briefs are expected. In an industry that glamourises the grind, burning yourself out looks indistinguishable from being great at your job. And honestly, I was okay with it, and I am still okay with it. But it now comes along with taking care of myself, in whichever way it might be.
Achieving things alone hits differently, and sometimes in a good way. My achievements were celebrated in my apartment, on my own – spending time with my dog, having a drink, watching something, or going out to concerts (my favourite). This is also being productive, in a fun way, and using it as a painkiller to keep myself happy. But sometimes, amidst the wins, you start missing that one person who could have been by your side to share the wins. Every win you clock – the campaign, the client, the new role- I wanted to share with someone. When there’s no one to call, I just find the next thing to achieve. The treadmill never stops because stopping reveals the silence. And I wasn’t ready to accept the silence for a long time.
My productivity isn’t laziness in disguise; it was a coping mechanism in a suit. I am not avoiding growth. I am surviving. There’s a difference. And recognising it is the first honest thing I can do for myself.
Until redundancy made me realise I was losing myself. Drowned myself in surgeries and healthcare to fix my body. And then came the stress of looking for another job, and it’s still on. I was in and out of hospitals until April this year, and I still do not give myself the credit I deserve for pushing through every damn thing that was thrown my way. I walked out gloriously, out of every roadblock. And yet, time and again, I have failed to give myself credit and a little tap on the back.
I keep forgetting that I am allowed to enjoy my life while I am job searching. Unemployment isn’t a moral state that disqualifies me from good weekends with someone I love. But every concert I have watched while being unemployed, the negativity has crept in, in some way or the other. And then, I start going back to the painkiller – mindlessly apply for jobs, send out applications, cold reach, make content, clean the house, cook, go to the gym – until I get exhausted, and go to sleep. The moment the work slows down is the moment everything I’ve been outrunning catches up. A quiet weekend. A cancelled plan. Suddenly there’s nothing to do. And everything I’ve been moving too fast to feel – the grief, the anger, the loneliness- is right there waiting.
The real work isn’t on the brief. It’s learning to exist without the noise. The version of me that comes out the other side of this isn’t the one who worked the hardest. It’s the one who finally sat still long enough to figure out what I actually want. That’s the hardest project I’ll ever manage. And the most worth it.
-N