Is Busyness a Good Thing?

Throughout its history, America has been host to a long string of foreigners determined to try to figure out what this country was all about. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat and political scientist, was perhaps the most famous visitor, having toured the country in 1831 and recording his findings in the now-classic, two-volume work Democracy in America (1835, 1840).

Almost a century later, Thomas Cadett, a British reporter for the London Times, came to the United States with the same goal in mind. In 1926, Cadett accepted a year-long fellowship with the purpose of “getting a national acquaintance with American conditions,” spending time at the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Daily News, and the Atlanta Constitution and writing about his observations. Like Tocqueville and others who had come to America to survey the scene, Cadett was able to provide an outsider’s perspective of the country that offered valuable insight into our national identity.

Cadett appeared to be familiar with the traditional symbols that defined the United States but felt that there was something else that better captured the American spirit. “In spite of your eagle and e pluribus unum,” he wrote, “there is a slogan so characteristically American that it deserves to be given the dignity of a national motto.” Cadett’s proposed slogan consisted of just two words: “Let’s go.” “It is the call of energy, the expression of a restless desire to do or be something, or to go somewhere,” as he described it, all the more remarkable in that the ultimate goal was typically “unspecified and, for that matter, unknown.”

Although the precise endgame of “Let’s go” was entirely up for grabs, Cadett believed he had a good sense of why Americans were, well, going. It was: “achievement of many kinds, some great, some piffling,” he wrote, a conclusion not unlike that of Tocqueville. (“All are constantly seeking to acquire property, power, and reputation,” the Frenchman had observed.) While the achievement of any sort was a good thing, Cadett felt there was a heavy price attached to the effort. Americans were a nervous, anxious, and largely unsatisfied group of people, he suggested, noting that there appeared to be more suicides in this country than any other (except perhaps Germany, which at the time was experiencing serious problems).

As well, Cadett noted, while broad prosperity had resulted from their restlessness, Americans worked too hard and simply didn’t know how to enjoy life. Competitiveness had led to an unending spiral of “busyness,” with most unable to sit still for any length of time. “Gum must be chewed, newspapers bought every few hours, and movies visited several times a week,” Cadett observed, thinking that this was “an unhealthy diet.”

Almost another century has gone by, and things appear to be much the same in this country. Rather than gum, newspapers, and movies, it is screens that continually occupy our time, with many unable to sit for any length of time without texting, emailing, social networking, or watching the latest undeniably hilarious cat videos. Acquiring money and the things it can buy accounts for much of our busyness, of course, as the more we earn the more we can spend. As in 1831, many of us are deeply committed to acquiring property, power, and reputation, making it fair to say that ambition and achievement remain our national occupation.

Is this a good thing? While prosperity has continued to climb, the psychological costs attached to our ever-escalating busyness are steep. Discontent and a fruitless pursuit for happiness are readily apparent, a function of our restlessness and the competitive climate we have created for ourselves. Our therapeutic culture has much to do with the pressures associated with having to achieve something, anything really, as no one wants to be cast as a loser in the game of life. As in 1926, many Americans work too hard and simply don’t know how to enjoy life, I’d argue, in this respect making these Roaring Twenties not much different than the last Roaring Twenties.

A century from now, I hope a visitor from another country comes to the United States to figure out what we’re about and concludes that we’re not a particularly ambitious group of people but that we’re generally happy, contented, and sure as hell know how to enjoy life.