The Busy Trap

This is one of the best articles I've read in a long time! And if you are too "busy" to read it, you'll laugh when you finally get a chance to. Here's an excerpt:

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this; it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work....

 Read more in the NYT. It's so good! (Thanks, Joyce, Tom, and Alessia)

An Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism

All those interested in healthcare might find this fascinating. Read more in the NYT. (Thanks, Claire)

Redefining Success and Celebrating the Ordinary

Here's an excerpt:

We hold so dearly onto the idea that we should all aspire to being remarkable that when David McCullough Jr., an English teacher, told graduating seniors at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts recently, “You are not special. You are not exceptional,” the speech went viral.

“In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another — which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality — we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement,” he told the students and parents. “We have come to see them as the point — and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.”

I understand that Mr. McCullough, son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, is telling these high school seniors that the world might not embrace them as unconditionally as their parents have. That just because they’ve been told they’re amazing doesn’t mean that they are. That they have to do something to prove themselves, not just accept compliments and trophies.

So where did this intense need to be exceptional come from? ... 

Read the NYT article. (Thanks, Neil!)

According to this new AZ law all women are pregnant. Awesome.

New law in Arizona states 'pregnancy begins two weeks before conception.' Read more in the Examiner.

(Thanks Kristina)

The Business Case for Reading Novels

Do business managers who read novels have more emotional intelligence? Read the HBR post. (Thanks, Liz!)

Inside the Hoarder’s Brain: A Unique Problem with Decision-Making

Read more in TIME. (Thanks, Tom)

Women: Want a promotion? Find a boss whose wife has a career.

Men whose spouses don't work outside the home bring attitudes to the office with them that ultimately hold women back, says a new study. Read more at CNN Money.  (Thanks, Tom!)