Early Retirement Extreme Forums

"The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy"
I get a perverse pleasure out of tweeting this quote by Lin Yutang whenever someone is going on about how productive they are
I also recommend Yutang's "The Importance of Living".

Ah, but "productive" doesn't necessarily mean "busy". There's busy work (for those lazy of mind) and then there's productive work.
That said, I understand your point. Obviously you're saying that those bragging of their productivity are really bragging of how busy they are. I'm recollecting the tale of the farmer with a dull ax who is too busy chopping down the tree to sharpen the ax.

Rightly you should. I am thinking of the famous story about the businessman talking to the fisher trying to convince him to make a huge fishing industry so he can afford to have the free time to fish all day:)

We've all heard the happiness studies that show happiness levels off after a certain level of income... did you also hear of the study which says that the more we can spend on leisure, the happier we are?
If you meld the two studies, then it's likely that people with higher incomes are too busy to spend on their leisure, thus the happiness return is not there.