Many things differentiate the human from the animal. One of those things is the need to stay busy. Plenty of animals would be happy doing absolutely nothing, knowing that they have love, shelter, and food. They have no problem spending the rest of their days doing nothing. Don’t believe me? Look at your pup. How would people react to doing this for the rest of their lives?

Work by Hsee, Yang, and Wang says that humans would be miserable if they did nothing. There is a catch-22 here. Humans can’t be busy for the sake of being busy. We get satisfaction from doing something worthwhile but little satisfaction when we scroll on our phones while waiting for a latte. If there is some justification for doing something, regardless of how weak, we enjoy it rather than not doing it. The only reason we do it is to stay busy, which results in greater happiness. You look for a job to have something to do, and that something to do should produce joy.

There’s an evil side to productivity. People used to hide from their negativity. There are times when people use work as a method to avoid problems. If they are a manager or position in power, they then take that fear towards their team members to match their “productivity.” People who also bury their heads in work are too busy to see the consequences of their actions. They don’t celebrate successes, nor do they look at failures. Meaningless and menial work has the opposite effect on happiness and can lead to more harmful results like burnout and depression.