Busy Busy?

What is the single most common response you get when you ask people how they are? Conversely what is your most common reply to that question?

Let me hazard a guess, it’s something along the lines of: ”Nothing much, work, been busy.”

Busy. A word, a complaint, a statement that seems to be the norm, the presumed status. So much so, that I for one sometimes feel anything that is ’not busy’ is equated with unimportant, inconsequential and unambitious. Ok, that sounds borderline paranoid. Despite the exaggeration though, I really think that’s almost how it works in our minds. While no-one outright admits to admiring a hectic schedule per se, it is naturally linked to attributes most definitely sought after. And vice versa.

It is also so very easy make yourself busy these days. Work increasingly consists of only-a-short-attention-span-needed-for-this-one kind of tasks. Checking e-mails, surfing the web. Popping in and out of reality. The same applies to our free time: networking, maintaining contact with friends in different countries and different walks of life is now easier than ever. Facebook, e-mails, linked-in, twitter. A bad conscience if you neglect them. But the reward we get from such inevitably superficial (at least in some sense I for one feel such interaction is always superficial in a way) socializing is very different from even a half hour face-to-face coffee or lunch date.

We are used to being busy and others being busy so we schedule month ahead. Which in turn only adds to the feeling of being busy.

If we concede that this is a problem what should be the answer? Down-shifting? The answer to many woes would appear to come in the form of  a new ’life style’ these days. Feeling tired and unenergetic? Try eating raw super food and raw super food only. Feeling a little uncomfortable in your own skin? Go on a low-carb-no-spices-no dairy-I-only-eat-food-that-is-red-and-I-only-eat-at-06am-and-1pm-exactly-diet. Saying ”I’m downshifting” is acceptable. It’s different and courageous. Just saying you’ve taken it ease, gone on aimless walks and long coffee brakes on your own sounds boring.

I don’t need a new life style. I don’t want to down shift or publicly commit to any other nonsense-framed-into-a-grandiose-ideology. But I do want to feel like, at least most of the time, I do things in a way that I can enjoy them. I do not want to feel busy. I can think of a 134 things that would help me feel less busy. Some of them involve inheriting 8,9 million euros from an eccentric millionaire uncle I never knew I had. But other are perhaps more realistic.

Like saying you’re busy only when your super busy and really feel like sharing that with someone. Not scheduling ahead too much. Not allowing myself to be all ADCH at work or during my free time and concentrating on one cute animal video at a time. This is basically me in like three weeks from now:

Ha got you! It’s not really future me. It’s a random picture of a Zen monk from: http://www.kenlauher.com/daily-wisdom/bid/31187/The-Monk-With-Sweaty-Palms.

Anyway I’ll let you know how it goes.

Numerous articulate writes have commented on this topic prior to my modest contribution. Check out for example:

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/please-stop-complaining-about/

kuvia: http://www.superherolife.com/2013/03/im-actually-not-that-busy/

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20120803-tim-kreider-the-busy-trap.ece