The Doing Trap - Essay No. 1
The doing trap is one of the most normalized traps we live in, precisely because it is so often mistaken for responsibility, diligence, and maturity. Doing a lot is seen as something good, being busy is perceived as a sign of value, and performance becomes a way of showing that one takes life seriously. For many, this begins early, often in the role of the good girl or the good boy, where self-worth slowly becomes tied to delivering, showing up, being useful, and holding things together.
The problem is not doing. The problem arises when doing becomes a way of avoiding being, when it feels uncomfortable not to do, when stillness creates anxiety, and when self-worth is so tightly bound to performance that the absence of activity is experienced as a threat. Doing then becomes a coping strategy to soothe the nervous system. I see this in so many people, especially women, who are constantly doing something in order not to feel.
The doing trap is therefore not primarily a behaviour, but a compensation. The worse we feel, the more we tend to do, and the greater the inner discomfort, the more activity it generates. Doing becomes a way of regulating the nervous system, a fight-or-flight response that keeps us in motion so that we do not have to feel what would otherwise catch up with us. This is not about people who are so ill, depressed, or exhausted that they cannot do anything at all. That is not the group I am speaking about here. This is about those who drive themselves, often far beyond their own limits, precisely because they still can, just a little more. They hover at the edge, rest briefly in sheer exhaustion, and then push forward again.
This is a direct path into what is often called burnout, and many people linger at its threshold for very long periods, years or even decades, managing only by staying just within the margins. There is no buffer, emotionally, energetically, or physically, and the smallest additional strain can tip them into injury, nervous breakdown, or complete collapse. Many live in this borderland, and it is far from sustainable. Unfortunately, people often do not know how to get out of it, and if one has driven oneself in this emergency state for a long time, the body often requires just as long to recover, sometimes years. At the same time, our society has little understanding of how the lives we live push us into this state, and how hard we push ourselves.
At its core, doing is often connected to control, to the belief that if I do not do this, then who will. I hear this often, especially from women, but also from men. There is a strong identity in being the one who carries, the one who fixes, the one who makes sure everything works. At the same time, there is often a sense of martyrdom in this, a feeling of I do everything, I have to do everything, I am the one who always shows up. The paradox is that many who claim to be overburdened do not actually want to be relieved, because the need for control is so strong. It becomes a contradictory movement, where one complains about the burden while holding on to it tightly.
This becomes particularly clear when observing people in situations where nothing is actually required of them, such as in a cinema. I remember an evening at the opera when I saw Swan Lake with my daughter, and I was struck by how clearly three different states appeared in the audience. Some people could not sit still. Their bodies fidgeted, they shifted positions, leaned back and forth, looked up and down, checked their phones. They were not present in what they were seeing or hearing, but caught up in their heads. Others fell asleep almost immediately, not out of boredom but out of exhaustion, their bodies collapsing the moment they were given the chance. And then there were those who were fully in the performance, in their bodies, in their senses, in the music.
I know the difference, because I have been there myself. Twenty years ago, I could sit through an entire performance while thinking about something else entirely. Today, there is nothing else when I sit there. There is only what is. The difference is not interest. The difference is the state of the nervous system.
This says a great deal about our society. Many people can no longer simply sit and receive through the body and the senses. Stillness triggers stress and becomes an immediate physiological response. The HPA axis activates, cortisol surges, and the body signals danger despite there being none. It is a remarkable mechanism when it is needed, but utterly destructive when it becomes the default state.
We live in a society where the stress response has become normal. We struggle to return to rest, to rest and digest, to the parasympathetic state in which the body can actually repair itself, both physically and mentally. That is where healing occurs, not in constant activity.
The doing trap does not only express itself through physical activity, but also through thinking. Thinking is also a form of doing. I would even say that our greatest addiction as humans is thinking. To think is to do. When thoughts never rest, when the mind is constantly occupied, enormous amounts of energy are drained into it. Whether there are seventy thousand thoughts a day or fewer matters less than the fact that they run continuously, often without direction or meaning.
Many people push themselves until they collapse. They run themselves into the ground, work themselves into exhaustion, just to be able to say that today I did something, today I was productive, today I am allowed to feel satisfied. Today I planned the entire spring. And again, I am not speaking of people who are forced to work multiple jobs to survive. I am speaking of the large group who drive themselves into this pattern, often completely unconsciously and often around things that are, in themselves, insignificant.
What is interesting is that when I myself began stepping out of the doing trap, the amount of things that got done did not change, but my relationship to doing did. I still do a lot, but it is no longer associated with stress. It flows. Things get done without me having to chase them mentally. What previously required eighty percent of my energy for sixty percent of the result can now require twenty percent of my energy for a full result. These are the same tasks, sometimes more complex, sometimes physically demanding, but the experience is entirely different.
I have also stopped ranking doing as fun or boring. This may sound trivial, but it has changed a great deal. When I worked extra in home care and in nursing homes, I used to feel resistance toward certain tasks. Then I changed my way of relating to them. I stopped judging the doing and became present in it instead. Changing a diaper on an adult may not be something one spontaneously calls fun, but it is helping another human being. Who decided what counts as valuable doing and what does not? What happens if, instead of evaluating what you are doing, you are simply in what is being done? That difference is fundamental.
When the label is removed from doing, the experience of it changes as well. When doing is no longer tied to value, status, or identity, it becomes simply doing, an action. There is a profound freedom in that. To act in the present, neutrally, is to be free in many ways. It is not boring. On the contrary, most tasks become enjoyable once resistance disappears.
Many then ask how one should act if one is not supposed to do, yet still wants things to get done. What has replaced much of my former doing is what might be called inspired action, action that does not arise from demand, fear, or control, but from something already in motion. This often sounds provocative to those deeply invested in structure, planning, and control, as it is easily interpreted as chaos or irresponsibility. The assumption is that if I do not manage everything myself, nothing will happen. My experience is the opposite.
When control loosens, better timing often appears, along with greater precision and less friction. This does not mean that structure disappears, but that structure is no longer identity-bearing. Doing follows, rather than leads. The doing trap is therefore not about stopping doing, but about stopping the use of doing to numb discomfort, regulate self-worth, create control, or build identity. The more we live in constant activity, the further we often drift from ourselves, until we risk functioning more like machines, or like disembodied heads, than like living humans with hearts.
Stepping out of the doing trap does not mean becoming passive, lazy, or disengaged. It means allowing action to arise from a different state, a state in which the body is no longer in constant readiness, where presence replaces compulsion, and where action is no longer an escape from stillness, but an expression of it.