The Productivity Myth That’s Making Us All Mentally Ill During A Pandemic
You are a human being, not a robot
All this time at home and you haven’t achieved anything? You idiot.
This was your one chance to do something meaningful. You’re back at work soon, and you won’t have time. You had all the time in the world and you wasted it watching Tiger King. What’s the matter with you?
You could have written a novel. Worked on your art. You absolute waste of space.
Imagine what you could have done with all those hours spent watching TV and eating, and watching more TV. Unbelievable. You’ve literally procrastinated for twelve months. You’ve been as unproductive as possible for a whole year. Jesus Christ.
You’ve had a year and you’ve got nothing to show for it.
Does this dialogue sound familiar? That voice in your head is your ideal self. It’s the person you wish you were. The person you want to be. The person that if you were them, and it wasn’t just a tiny critical voice inside your head, you think you’d be happier than you are now. It tells you you’re not good enough, because you’ve not done the things you wish you were doing and haven’t achieved the things you wanted to achieve. And the ideal self is fuelled by societal expectations; our perception…
