Busyness

In your recent interactions with people have you ever answered to the simple question “How are you?” with some variation of “I’m so busy!” What happened to the good old, “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”. Do we somehow think that being “busy” is a symbol of status and importance?

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; it is our way to tell people that our life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if we are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. When we say 'I am busy' it sets a wrong tone to the conversation too, because if we are so busy then it creates distance even before one starts the conversation (my opinion), why would anyone want to take our time in a small talk if we are so busy.

The truth is that being busy all the time is counterproductive. Our brains need space to think clearly and strategically. If we are caught up in the busy trap then it actually means that we are constantly reacting to tasks, accept whatever the day throws at us, being part of something that we don't even want to do, instead of making purposeful choices about what to do with our time.

We need to stop the glorification of busy and not let the activities/ social events/ tasks choose us, but we should choose them.

We need to make the choice to be less busy and schedule some time to reset, relax and give our mind the space it needs to think creatively, to come up with great ideas and to just rejuvenate.

Every time we tell ourselves (or others) that we are too busy, we should stop and think about what we are really saying and think about everything that is cluttering up our calendar and our to-do list and decide to do only what is important. We just might discover the joy of being less busy.