WANTING TO FILL SPACE

Wanting to fill space is a common neurotic response to panic. Work then becomes a means of escape. If you are experiencing depression or fear, or life is simply not going smoothly, then immediately you start polishing your table or weeding your garden. You immediately try to find something to do. In this case, the worker has no real communication with the actual work at all. The work is a way of escaping, or on the mental level, it is a way of avoiding looking into the basic problem.

Excerpted from:

"The Myth of Happiness" in Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness

by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, page 41.