周圍的人見面最常用的問候語是：“最近忙什麼呢?”有人可能會說“瞎忙”，有人可能會很實誠地給你列出一堆他/她正在忙的事情。總之，大家都很忙。

Moaning about one's schedule has become, for some, a mark of social status. We're not speaking here about the kind of busyness associated with scraping by near the poverty line, of course, but rather the kind associated with lives of material privilege. For instance, when you ask a colleague for assistance, he/she may reply like this:"I would like to help but cannot. I am desperately trying to finish a screenplay and a talk I need to give in Milan." Let's call this phenomenon 'busy-bragging'.

對某些人來說，抱怨自己的日程有多滿已經成為一種社會地位的象征。我們這裡說的忙并不是那些掙紮在貧困線上忙着謀生的人，而是與具有物質優越感的人有關。比如，你找一個同事幫忙，你聽到的回答可能是：“我很想幫你，可是不行啊。我正忙着寫一個劇本，還有一個要在米蘭演講的講話稿。”我們把這種現象稱為“炫忙”。

The interesting but thorny thing about busy-bragging is that most of us who engage in it aren't doing it consciously to impress others. Those busy feelings are absolutely real. That's why it is also known as busyness epidemic.

而“炫忙”這件事很有意思又頗具諷刺意味的地方在于，我們絕大多數說忙的人并不是為了讓别人重視自己而故意說忙的。我們忙碌的感覺是很真實的。因此，這種現象也被稱為“忙症”。

Data on leisure time suggests we’re not much busier than we were, yet we feel busier, partly because – for “knowledge workers”, anyway – there’s no limit to the number of emails we can get, the demands that can be made of us, or the hours of the day we can be in touch with the office. Work feels infinite, but our capacities are finite, therefore overwhelm is inevitable.

休閑時間數據表明，我們并沒有比過去更忙，可我們的确覺得更忙了。一部分原因可能是，尤其對“知識分子”來說，每天收到郵件的數量、我們接收到的工作要求，以及處理辦公事務所花的時間并沒有一個限額。似乎總有做不完的工作，而我們的精力是有限的，所以難免會覺得有點不堪重負。