Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to be busy. Or rather too busy. What causes it? We all have things in our life that need tending to. Bills to pay, dishes to clean, clothes to wash. It’s how it goes. At work you’ll inevitably have a list of things that fall under your responsibilities. Being busy is even good. It motivates us and drives us to do things we might not have considered before. But back to being too busy. Why?
It seems to be praised in our society. Being busy means you must be successful. You must have a lot of things going for you. Okay, but let’s dig deeper. Where does that come from? Why would someone load on a bunch of stuff to the point where all they can do is run around exclaiming that they are too busy? There could definitely be a lot of factors: greed, need, boredom, avoidance, etc. It could even be that someone who has leadership above you is susceptible to these things, passing the busy schedule your way. It’s entirely possible that “your busy” is not even your busy at all. My theory – someone is too important. It could maybe even be called self-importance.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to pack my schedule. It excites me to have people to see and places to go. I think that busy is okay. But I’m starting to think that too busy is not okay. Too busy says “my busy is worth more than your busy”. My this is more important than your that. Meaning, I don’t have time for you because this is more important. And maybe sometimes it is more important, but often, it probably isn’t. I don’t mean to point any fingers because I certainly can fall to into this trap. Watching it though in different aspects of life, I don’t like the message it sends. Instead, I want to be the person that’s approachable. Present. Interested. Eager to help. Available.
If I’m always too busy, I can’t ever be those things. Then what am I really accomplishing?
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