So How Busy Are You Really?

I bet if I stood in downtown Anchorage with a clipboard and pencil, asking every person the generic "How's your day?" question, nine times out of ten I'd get the same response.

"Busy!" They'd say. Because when I ask people I know in real life how they're doing, ninety percent of the time that's the answer they give me.

It stumps me a bit when I hear someone comment on how busy they are. Is everyone I know busy? What are they doing to keep them so busy--so consistently busy? Sometimes they'll elaborate with an example of their frantic daily schedule, proving to me that they are, in fact, terribly busy. Sometimes they'll just leave "busy" without any explanation as if it's some vague yet wholly complete state of being--no explanation necessary. But they never say the word in a pleasant way, as if they're excited to be capable of the miracle of life, locomotion and rational thought, it's always said with just a hint of exasperation, fatigue, or irritation--take your pick--as if the question itself is an unwanted interruption.

Maybe my acquaintances are just busier than the average human but I doubt it.

I've thought about it and I've come to believe that we all have been taken in. We've been scammed, we've swallowed the non sequitur that if you're busy then you must be important. Important equals busy so busy equals important. The busier you are the more in demand you are, the more people want you, the more valuable your allotment of hours is. Someone who isn't busy, who has just enough hours in the day to accomplish exactly what they set out to do after rising from their bed well-rested and happy, who goes through the week unharried from the demands of others is unwanted, unnecessary and unrespected.

It's a simple case of the law of supply and demand being horribly misconstrued, crossing over into our social order in ways it was never meant to--kind of like social Darwinism--and with equally nasty and unpleasant results.

Instead of busy-ness being a sign of disorganization, the inability to prioritize, a tendency to take too much on and a misuse of our most valuable resource (i.e. time) busy-ness has come to be honored as a sign of prestige and power which doesn't make sense to me. I don't admire people who run about from one task to the next with little time in between for humanity but we've been brainwashed to think that they're productive and efficient when most likely they're just cursed with twitchy leg syndrome. Or whatever the social equivalent of not being able to sit still is.

Sure it's great to be involved in your community, to be challenging yourself by learning new things, to be creative and enthusiastic but nowadays, more often than not, being busy tends to cross the line into needless chores that always seem to take longer than they should, leaving us racing through red lights, grabbing junk food from vending machines and keeping us from connecting with those around us. And why? So we can maintain an enviable lifestyle. To make our kids smarter or more talented than their counterparts, to make our houses and toys bigger and better than the neighbors' or to be higher on the corporate ladder than the next guy--which all require even more work to maintain. It's the cruel and horrible cycle that kills with certainty.

So slow down. Don't be so darn busy. After all, everyone around you thinks they're busier than you are anyway so maybe you should allow them to be--give them a cut in line or a smile as they merge ahead of you on the freeway. Let your kids have time to be kids and spend a day at play without the constant stream of lessons and sports events. If you have to multi-task then multi-task but first make sure each task is worth doing before investing so many precious minutes of your day on it.

And for goodness sake, when someone asks you how you're doing, don't say, "Busy!" We've heard it too many times to take it seriously anyway.

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