It's a bit past 10 p.m., and I'm scrolling through my phone, telling myself I'm checking something important. But I'm not.

I'm just checking that I still exist.

This reflex—reaching for a device the moment we stop moving—has become the defining gesture of modern life. We call it staying connected, but what it really signals is something deeper: the fear that if we're not in motion, we're disappearing.

It's like we've turned being busy into a performance. And it's costing us everything we meant to progress toward.

Researchers studying productivity call it time poverty—the chronic sense of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. I hear it all the time. But there's a paradox: We're more efficient than any generation in history. We automate, accelerate, and optimize every task. Still, most working adults report feeling constantly behind.

The problem here isn't time itself. It's that we've confused motion with meaning.

Progress was once synonymous with direction, buoyed by a collective belief that human effort could improve the world. Somewhere along our path, progress became a bona fide compulsion. We now measure worth by velocity: how fast we respond, how many boxes we check off, how much we produce before lunch.

Every notification hijacks the same dopamine circuit that once signaled survival. So it's easy to mistake activation for being alive.

I've noticed that the faster we move, the further meaning recedes.

We set a goal, chase it, achieve it—and the moment we arrive, the target moves again. A new milestone appears from nothing, and the next metric glows neon bright. The cycle restarts. And it's not because we failed or because success wasn't enough, but because velocity has become the point.

I have run at full speed in the wrong direction and still called it progress. I've tried to optimize relationships, gamify my health, "level up" my

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