I used to start every day by opening my laptop before I had finished my coffee and by 9am I had already responded to eleven other people’s priorities and had not spent a single minute on my own — and I did that for six years and called it work ethic before I understood it was the most effective way I had ever found to avoid the discomfort of deciding what I actually wanted

For six years, I convinced myself that being instantly available was the same thing as being valuable.

Every morning played out the same way. Laptop open before the coffee was half-finished. Email inbox calling like a siren. By 9am, I’d already responded to eleven other people’s priorities and hadn’t spent a single minute on my own.

And here’s the kicker: I called it work ethic. I wore my constant availability like a badge of honor, telling myself that successful people were always on, always responsive, always productive.

What I didn’t realize was that this wasn’t productivity at all. It was avoidance dressed up in a three-piece suit.

The comfort of other people’s urgency

You know what’s easier than figuring out what you actually want from life? Responding to what everyone else wants from you.

Think about it. When someone sends you an email marked “urgent,” you know exactly what to do. There’s a clear task, a defined timeline, and someone else has already decided it matters. No uncomfortable soul-searching required.

For years, my morning ritual of diving straight into other people’s needs felt productive. Hell, it felt virtuous. Look at me, being so responsive! So reliable! So completely disconnected from my own desires that I couldn’t tell you what I actually wanted if you paid me.

The truth hit me during a particularly frantic morning when I realized I’d been awake for three hours and hadn’t had a single original thought. Not one. Everything in my brain was a reaction to someone else’s request, someone else’s deadline, someone else’s priority.

That’s when it clicked: I was using busyness as a numbing agent.

Why deciding what you want feels so damn hard

Here’s something they don’t tell you in productivity seminars: figuring out what you genuinely want from life is uncomfortable as hell.

When you strip away all the external demands and actually sit with yourself, things get quiet. Too quiet. And in that silence, all sorts of uncomfortable questions bubble up. Am I on the right path? Is this the life I want? What if I’m wasting my potential? What if I try for what I really want and fail?

During my twenties, I battled anxiety and an overactive mind that constantly worried about the future while regretting the past. Opening my laptop first thing was like hitting a mute button on all that noise. Suddenly, I had tasks! Deadlines! Important emails that needed immediate responses!

It was the perfect escape route from the discomfort of actually examining my life.

In my book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I explore how we often mistake motion for progress. Just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re moving toward anything meaningful. Sometimes you’re just running in place, kicking up dust to avoid seeing where you’re actually standing.

The false security of perfectionism

Want to know another way I avoided facing what I wanted? Perfectionism.

If I could just respond to every email perfectly, manage every project flawlessly, never drop a single ball, then surely I’d be successful, right? Wrong. What I discovered was that my perfectionism was a prison, not a virtue.

Perfectionism is sneaky because it feels productive. You’re working hard! You’re maintaining high standards! But really, it’s another form of avoidance. When you’re obsessed with doing everything perfectly for everyone else, you never have to risk doing something imperfect for yourself.

The Buddhist concept of “beginner’s mind” taught me something crucial here. It’s about approaching life with openness and lack of preconceptions, accepting that you don’t need to be perfect to begin. You just need to begin.

Breaking the cycle starts with five minutes

So how do you break free from this cycle of avoidance disguised as productivity?

Start small. Ridiculously small.

I began by protecting the first five minutes of my day. Just five. No laptop, no phone, no responding to anyone else’s needs. Just me and my coffee, sitting with whatever thoughts wanted to surface.

At first, it was uncomfortable. My mind would race through my to-do list, anxiety would creep in about all the “urgent” emails waiting for me. But I stuck with it.

These days, I practice meditation daily, though the length varies. Sometimes it’s five minutes, sometimes thirty. But the consistency matters more than the duration. It’s about creating space between waking up and reacting to the world.

Writing has become another way I connect with my own priorities. I write daily now, treating it as a discipline rather than waiting for inspiration. It forces me to generate my own thoughts before consuming everyone else’s.

The art of disappointing people

Here’s a hard truth: when you start prioritizing your own wants and needs, you will disappoint people.

That client who’s used to getting an immediate response? They’ll have to wait. That colleague who treats everything as urgent? They’ll need to adjust their expectations. That part of you that derives self-worth from being constantly available? It’s going to throw a tantrum.

But here’s what I’ve learned: disappointing others occasionally is far better than disappointing yourself constantly.

I started setting boundaries. Email doesn’t get checked until I’ve spent at least an hour on my own priorities. My phone stays in another room while I write. I’ve learned to sit with the discomfort of knowing someone might be waiting for my response while I focus on what actually matters to me.

What actually wanting looks like

When you finally create space to hear your own thoughts, don’t expect immediate clarity. What you want doesn’t usually announce itself with fanfare and fireworks.

Instead, it whispers. It shows up as a persistent interest you keep pushing aside. A project idea that won’t leave you alone. A lifestyle change that scares you but also excites you. A career pivot that makes no sense on paper but feels right in your gut.

For me, it was combining psychology research with Buddhist philosophy and personal experience in my writing. It wasn’t the most obvious career path, but once I stopped drowning out my own voice with other people’s priorities, it became impossible to ignore.

Final words

That person who used to open their laptop before finishing their coffee? They still exist in me. The pull toward immediate productivity, toward the comfortable busyness of responding to others, it hasn’t disappeared entirely.

But now I recognize it for what it is: avoidance dressed up as ambition.

The discomfort of deciding what you actually want doesn’t go away. You just get better at sitting with it. You learn that the anxiety of facing your own desires is temporary, but the regret of ignoring them lasts much longer.

Start tomorrow differently. Before you open that laptop, before you check that phone, before you respond to anyone else’s priorities, give yourself five minutes. Just five. Sit with your coffee, your thoughts, your own wants and needs.

It might be the most uncomfortable five minutes of your day. It might also be the most important.