Clarity over Productivity

After dealing with severe procrastination issues during high school, productivity became my coping mechanism.

My worth became fused with output, my identity merged with achievement, until I could no longer distinguish between what I do and who I am.

This poem emerged from my own untangling from the religion of productivity, the black hole of busyness and the machinery of more.

What if what the world doesn’t need our productivity, but our clarity?

“From the Emptiness Of Non-Being, The Mystic Pearl Crystallizes In effortless Transformation, Seen not with Eyes But with Spirit, In Inner Silence.” —Tao Te Ching

PS. This post was originally published in my newsletter on Substack. Read it here 👇

Clarity over Productivity

In the religion of productivity,

We have built cathedrals of busyness,

Worshipping at the altar of output,

Mistaking motion for meaning.

“How are you?” they ask,

“Busy”, we reply—

As if our worth could be measured

In tasks completed, emails answered.

Never in human history

Have we produced so much.

The more efficient our tools became,

The busier we declare ourselves to be.

I too have kneeled

Before the god of getting things done,

Using productivity as my talisman

Against the wild uncertainty of being.

For years, I've been caught

In productivity's black hole—

A gravitational pull so strong

That no light or joy could escape.

My worth became fused with output,

My identity merged with achievement,

Until I could no longer distinguish

Between what I do and who I am.

Productivity became my coping mechanism,

My escape from life's raw uncertainty—

A futile attempt to control the uncontrollable:

Time, mortality, and relationships.

What if our busyness

Is not a badge of honour

But a veil of distraction,

Obscuring what truly matters?

Society rewards what can be counted,

Not what truly counts.

We produce more ESG reports than ever

While forests turn to ash.

Look deeply into the mirror.

Do you see joy in your eyes?

Is compassion the undercurrent

Of your daily actions?

Or do you work to flee from silence,

To escape the whispers of mortality,

To find yourself worthy

In the eyes of the other?

The dying rarely wish

They had answered more emails,

Filed more reports,

Attended more meetings.

Productivity is a raft,

But we've forgotten the shore.

What if what the world needs

Is not your productivity,

But your aliveness?

Your full, unfiltered presence?

Perhaps it time to choose

Clarity over productivity,

Presence over perpetual motion,

Human beings over human doings.

So step outside the machinery of more.

Speak with the wind.

Press your hands into the living soil.

Recognise that you do not exist without the other.

This is not about working hard,

It's about being soft—

Like water finding its way through stone,

Not by force, but by persistent presence.

Let your actions flow naturally

Like a stream finding the ocean,

Neither rushed nor restrained,

In perfect accord with what is.

I know it's a privilege to pause,

To step outside the wheel of doing.

Yet, out of stillness a clarity arises

That no productivity hack can match.

Be the clarity

You want to see in the world.

A more beautiful productivity

Will naturally follow.

“With the Return to the Primal, to the Root, to where Non-Being and Being are One again, the World’s Hurly-Burly grows quiet.” —Tao Te Ching

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