Published October 15, 2026 09:25AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A few months ago, I was hiking with a friend when I tripped and pulled my hamstring. We both had our own alpine climbing goals that summer, and I\u2019d been looking at our morning hike as a training opportunity. I didn\u2019t want to hold either of us back.<\/p>\n
I assured him that I\u2019d be able to hobble along at our same brisk pace and, when that became impossible, told him that he should leave me behind. He refused both. Instead, he sat down beside me on the trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I spend too much time doing in nature, and not enough time being in nature.\u201d The brisk pace\u2014and therefore the training gains\u2014could wait.<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t have felt revolutionary, but it did. And it made me realize just how much I\u2019d let my own obsession with productivity bleed into my recreational life.<\/p>\n
When Nonstop Productivity Creates an Illusion of Control<\/h2>\n
I am a person who lives in fear of my own idleness. Every spare scrap of my time is scheduled, tracked, color-coded, and accounted for. The other day, my partner glanced over my shoulder at my phone and asked if I was playing Candy Crush. \u201cNo,\u201d I said, holding up the screen to show him the tightly packed colored squares. \u201cThat\u2019s just this week\u2019s Google calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the one hand, I know that my constant busyness comes from a deep-seated need for control. Fill my schedule with social plans, and I\u2019ll never be lonely. Control my time, and maybe I\u2019ll feel like I\u2019m controlling my life.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I do genuinely like doing stuff. When I lie on my deathbed, I want to feel fully wrung out, like I gave my all to this whole business of life and left no shred of time on the table. No trail unexplored. No mountain unclimbed.<\/p>\n
Some folks would call that approach very industrious, or very American. Others would call it toxic productivity.<\/p>\n
Toxic productivity is a fairly modern term that encompasses both the desperate need to be productive at all costs\u2014and the guilt that sets in after a day without measurable output. It can look like working long hours at the office. It can also look like assigning checklists and training goals to your hobbies to make them feel \u201cproductive,\u201d or trying to monetize them so they feel justified.<\/p>\n
Is It Possible to \u201cDo\u201d and \u201cBe\u201d at the Same Time?<\/h2>\n
Initially, I bristled at the idea of \u201cdoing in nature\u201d as a binary to \u201cbeing in nature.\u201d Couldn\u2019t I have both? Couldn\u2019t I like being outdoors and <\/i>give mountain sports my all? Wasn\u2019t doing the opposite a waste of time?<\/p>\n
Sitting beside someone who was perfectly happy to listen to the birds and watch the wind flutter through the ponderosa pines, I suddenly wasn\u2019t so sure. I\u2019d spent hundreds of hours pushing myself through pain and chasing an imagined future self instead of dwelling in the present. Maybe that also<\/i> counted as wasted time.<\/p>\n
Instead of letting the outdoors be an escape, I\u2019d turned it into yet another arena for excellence. I hadn\u2019t even made it back to the trailhead, and I was already mentally recalculating the mileage and gain I\u2019d have to do later in the week to make up for our lost training time. He, meanwhile, had nowhere to be but right there.<\/p>\n
Maybe some people can push their pace and fully absorb their surroundings at the same time. I don\u2019t know if I can. As long as I\u2019m thinking about my time, my heart rate zone, or my pitch count, a significant fraction of my mind is elsewhere. Partial presence in nature is better than no presence in nature. But I realized that to get a full reset, I needed to make time to stop chasing, sit in the dirt, and simply be still.<\/p>\n
The Happiness Trap<\/h2>\n
In Western societies, the relentless chase of self-improvement is usually celebrated. But research indicates that active pursuit\u00a0of anything can actually make you less happy.<\/i> That includes the pursuit of happiness itself.<\/p>\n
A 2018 study<\/a> from a pair of researchers at the University of Toronto and Rutgers University revealed that people who pursue happiness tend to do so because they believe time is running out, and that happiness is a destination that they must reach before it\u2019s too late. Worse, the act of chasing\u00a0happiness can actually put you in that kind of scarcity mindset, even if you aren\u2019t already.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the irony of setting goals, especially around wellness. The authors of the 2018 paper write that \u201ctrying to be happier often leads people to monitor not only happy thoughts but also unhappy thoughts at the same time, and the ironic salience of this negativity makes them feel unhappier.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words: fixating on a thing\u2014whether it\u2019s your health, your fitness, or your climbing grade\u2014means you\u2019re naturally focusing on your moments of failure as well as your moments of success. The result is often more dissatisfaction than you would have experienced had you just let yourself enjoy the thing without goals attached.<\/p>\n In the 2018 study, researchers found that participants were more likely to identify as happy if they viewed happiness as a state of gratitude as opposed to a thing to obtain.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s, for a moment, pretend I believe in the premise that I won\u2019t be happier if I win that race, slash that mile time, or notch that climbing grade. Won\u2019t I be unhappy<\/i> if I do the opposite? If I sit around being idle? If I skip that lunch run or give up on that climb? Or if, God forbid, I take a whole day\u2014or week, or month\u2014off my sport and watch my fitness hit rock bottom?<\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re ready to hear this or not, all that counts as rest.<\/p>\n A friend of mine, Madeleine Dore, once compiled her own thoughts about hustle culture and productivity guilt in a book refreshingly titled I Didn\u2019t Do the Thing Today<\/i><\/a>. <\/i>In it, she describes human creativity like a sponge. Sometimes, you\u2019re in an absorb phase. Sometimes you\u2019re in a squeeze phase.<\/p>\n During a squeeze, you can produce and produce and produce, but after a while, you\u2019re completely wrung out. At that point, the only way to refill is to let yourself lie fallow. That doesn\u2019t mean monetizing your hobby or poring over data to optimize your training. It means sitting in the dirt. Reading a book. Sleeping. Ambling. Watching the clouds go by.<\/p>\n The secret to a fulfilling and creative life isn\u2019t in the squeeze; it\u2019s in the absorb.<\/p>\n Do that, and you\u2019ll start to feel your brain sponge refill. You\u2019ll begin to appreciate the pure, intrinsic joy of moving your body outdoors just for its own damn sake. And you\u2019ll finally learn to revel in who you are right now\u2014not in the fictional person you\u2019re still trying to become.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how I\u2019m attempting to lean into being <\/i>in nature. These might work for you too: Want more Outside<\/i>\u00a0health stories?\u00a0Sign up for the Bodywork newsletter<\/a>. And for tips on how to train, fuel, and recover better,\u00a0sign up for the Sweat Science 101 newsletter.<\/strong><\/p>\nHow to Reclaim Being<\/h2>\n
10 Things I\u2019m Doing To (Try To) Free Myself From Toxic Productivity Outdoors<\/h2>\n
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