Somewhere along the way, being busy became proof that you were doing life properly. Ask someone how they are and there is a fair chance the answer will include a sigh, a list of commitments and a certain pride in being exhausted. We have managed to turn a shortage of time into a personal achievement.
I find that strange. Time is the one thing none of us can replace. We can lose money and make more. We can change jobs, houses, careers and opinions. A Tuesday afternoon, once spent, has gone for good. Yet we hand over Tuesday afternoons as casually as coins at a supermarket checkout.
There is work to be done, of course. Bills do not pay themselves. Children need looking after. People get ill. Washing machines break at inconvenient moments. This isn't an argument for spending the rest of your life in a deckchair with a glass of something cold, although that sounds worth considering occasionally. It is a question about how much of our busyness is necessary and how much has been inherited without examination.
We acquire expectations early. Be productive. Be useful. Keep improving. Get promoted. Buy a place. Keep it tidy. Have something to show for yourself. If you finish the day's tasks, there is always another list waiting. The finish line moves while you are running towards it.
And when somebody does manage to do less, we can become suspicious. What do they do all day? As though an afternoon spent talking with a friend, walking through a town you've never visited or sitting quietly with your thoughts requires a formal defence.
The odd thing is that many of the experiences we remember most vividly are spectacularly inefficient. A conversation that lasts until two in the morning. A journey made without a particularly sensible itinerary. An hour spent showing a child how to do something they could probably learn faster on a screen. None of these improves a productivity chart. They may improve a life.
I am not interested in telling people to throw their responsibilities away. I am interested in asking whether those responsibilities have grown so large that they have swallowed the person who took them on. We can get so good at maintaining the arrangements of life that we lose sight of what the arrangements were for.
Try a small experiment. Think about the last seven days. Which moments would you willingly live again? How many of them involved completing something? How many involved noticing something, enjoying something, being with someone or pursuing a curiosity that had no obvious practical benefit? The answers may surprise you. They might also tell you more about your priorities than a five-year plan ever could.
We are here for a limited time. I don't think that makes every minute sacred or demands that we squeeze extraordinary meaning out of buying milk. Some days are ordinary. Some are difficult. But we ought to retain at least a little say in what our days are made of. Being busy can be useful. Being alive is rather more interesting.