When we think that success depends on a balance, we can say that maintaining a lazy structure or procrastinating many things in life and focusing only on work will not get us to the goal. Why doesn't toxic productivity lead us to success? Here is the answer.
Toxic productivity is the negative impact of our physical, emotional and mental health as a result of trying to be overly productive by seeing our self-worth and productivity level in parallel.
Everyone knows about excessive inertia, but it is also important to know about and pay attention to toxic productivity because it is as harmful as excessive inertia. Keeping our minds at work, and damaging our family, friends, environment, and relationships are the biggest manifestations of toxic productivity.
It is bad when our emotions take over us, our minds are always at work, and the feeling that we cannot complete the work. People who are toxic productive are most likely to eventually experience “burnout” and are much more difficult to recover from a breaking point.
Toxic productivity can be seen as a personal growth obsession. No matter how productive you are, it is never to be happy with it. With a sense of guilt for not doing more, we can work to the extent that it harms our health, relationships, and general well-being. Having unrealistic expectations so that we constantly feel that we are failing will lead us to unhappiness. For this reason, if we do not rest when it is time to rest, if we cannot spare time for ourselves, this problem is not only ours personally and turns into a broad cultural problem. Like the pressure to be constantly online on social media…
These dynamics we live with with our family, friends or employers are filled with advertisements that encourage us to measure our self-worth against our productivity. If companies can make us obsessed with maximizing our productivity, then they can sell us a lot of products we don't need. Sometimes we may not realize how deeply we are drawn into a toxic vicious circle.
At its core, efficiency is a philosophy of life. Being productive is a routine, doing what we are consciously doing at every moment. This culture of toxic productivity was born in the 21st century machine. Toxic productivity is more than just workaholism, because while being a workaholic is an obligation to work nonstop, toxic productivity can even make us feel guilty for not doing more or finishing the project sooner.
We can be recognized, we can succeed, we can get the best exam results, we can swim in money. But what does it matter if we lose our physical and mental health?
There should be some non-negotiable items on our self-care list such as making time for ourselves, keeping up with our routines no matter how busy we are, and keeping a gratitude journal.
According to Aristotle, happiness is essentially a state of achievement. Sometimes, with toxic productivity, we can unwittingly fall into the inevitable collapse of the echo chamber in our lives. The stress that comes with relying on productivity is unique and difficult to manage. Our obsession with productivity can be mentally, psychologically and even physiologically devastating when we work hard and don't get the results we want.
This is exactly why we should know our rest and stop times, love ourselves and learn to be patient with ourselves. That's when happiness will begin in our lives and there will be a productivity that is not toxic, but where we can be happy and find peace.