Our nation seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. A nervous breakdown brought on by the way we have chosen to run our lives, or rather, let our lives run us.
The average hard-working American wakes up to a day filled with constant multitasking, interruptions, and ceaseless demands. We impose this on ourselves from the moment we wake up, checking our electronic devices for messages: phone, email, Blackberry, what have you. We are almost looking for a task to do, and when there is none, there is a both a sense of relief and the worry that we are not needed, right now, at this very moment. And this continues throughout the day. While we are in the same breath complaining about our overwhelming to-do lists, we are checking every 5 minutes to see if there is yet one more thing someone wants from us. Or thinking about what we can delegate to someone else via electronic communication, and waiting for their response (wondering, if it doesn't come immediately, are they ignoring us?). What a bunch of co-dependents we have become!
The constant sense of anxiety speaks to our communal sense of low self-esteem. What we value today is being busy - it is the new measure of self-worth. Being busy means being needed, being needed means being useful, being useful means being important. There is no sacred time when we can leave ourselves alone - not while we are on vacation, at a restaurant, or walking the dog. That phone rings and Bam! we are right on it, just like good little soldiers.
Of course, as hard as we chase the dream of doing it all, having it all, and being it all, we ultimately end up feeling like we fall short. This is what concerns me the most - all of this hard work, constant running, etc - all of this, just to feel like failures? Really? All of the missed moments with your kids, lunches cancelled, conversations cut off - for nothing? Feeling anxious all of the time, and never getting to that moment where you can pat yourself on the back and say "job well done"? Really? It's like we have become our own overly-critical parent, the one who is never pleased, the one with the impossible rules, the one who looks down their nose at our efforts and tells us that we will never amount to anything. But yet, we keep trying.
The self-help industry is thriving on our sense of failure. Yoga studios help us rebalance, therapists give us a guilt-free forum to talk about ourselves, and pharmacutical companies provide capsules that keep our demons at bay, so that we can get out there and stay in the game. The retail industry provides container-ship after container-ship of products for us to buy and show off to others, the evidence of all of our hard work and sacrifice.
I'm worried about us. I am worried about our vacuous, frenetic lives and what it is doing to our souls. I am worried that we are too busy trying to catch up with our lives to actually live them. I am worried that we have lost sight of what it means to be human, that we are turning into machines of our own making, that we are wallowing in our discomfort and martyring ourselves to an elusive cause. Because there is no cause in this battle we are fighting, we are doing all of this just to survive. That's just doesn't seem right, and I wonder how many times we will raise the bar for ourselves before we reach our breaking point.
