"Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing."
~Lao Tzu
I’m sure that on any given day, if I stopped and asked you about your schedule, you’d probably tell me about how busy you are. I know I could. I feel like my whole life is now on my iPhone and I heavily
rely on it to get me through my day.
But I must admit that I have been beyond exhausted for the past three
weeks. I’m so tired I go to bed
tired and wake up tired. And the
time! Oh my, the time! Where does
it go? I feel like there are not
enough hours in the day to get things done. I know I have the same 24 hours as everyone else, but I
swear mine are on the accelerated program. I have all of these plans and yet somehow I don’t get to
most of them. And it’s not like I’m just sitting at home doing nothing. I’m on the go . . . always. I’m busy. At any given moment, I am on the go, either for my daughter
or for myself. Between her ballet,
swim, Spanish, my exercise, coaching classes, and let’s not forget our quality
time, I am booked every hour of my day. I tip my hats to the people with more than multiple
children. How in the hell do you
people do this more than once?!
Yet with all of my going-ness (yes I just made up a new
word) and busy-ness, I never feel accomplished. I get it. I do
a lot in the day. But at the end
of the day I still have to ask myself, what have I really done? I journal every
day and the other day I decided to list some of my short-term goals. One such goal is to manage my time more
effectively. While I was quite
proud of myself for coming up with this insight, as my daughter would say, “all
by myself” . . . Excuse me, while I get that spot on my back I missed). . . OK, I’m back. As I was saying, while I was indeed
proud, it did give me a chance to pause for the cause. I don’t think I’m alone. And I don’t
say this because I feel freakishly abnormal and I just don’t want to be the
only one. I say this because in
this society we don’t feel worthy unless we’re just busy. Yet, this busy-ness only seems to
perpetuate the feeling of not being good enough. So we do more so that we can be/have more, and yet we end up
feeling even less than. There’s
something wrong with this cycle here.
Think about it, we literally run the invisible human hamster wheel of
life. We are so busy striving,
working, doing, and achieving, to get more, more, more. We’re the Energizer bunny rabbits—we
just keep going and going, yet I have to ask, are we really getting anywhere?
Somehow most of us have bought into this notion that we’re
no good if we’re not DOING something.
We forget that we are human beings, not human doings. And we deem lazy anyone who isn’t going
or doing. For many of us, it’s
hard for us to just sit down and relax. I know I have a hard time just sitting
and quieting my mind. When I had
my surgery a few weeks ago, I felt completely useless because I couldn’t DO
things for myself as I normally do.
And maybe I’m overcompensating for the time I was benched due to my
surgery because I feel like I haven’t taken a moment to just sit my arse down
since my doctor gave me the all clear.
And the result is that I’m tired. I’m beyond tired. And I think I’m paying for it right
now. I’m now coming down with something (cold or flu I’m not sure
which), which I know is going to require me to saddown (which means I should
have already been sitting down).
I get it. I really do.
We all want to matter. We
want to know that we’re doing something of value. We want things.
Nice things. We want to
provide and sitting on the couch or lying down doesn’t make you feel like
you’re close to any of that. But
if we’re honest, are we really getting anywhere in life? We have bigger homes that we’ve filled
with lots of stuff, which requires us to work harder and longer hours, yet we
don’t have a lot of things that are truly valuable. We have more technology that has allowed us to do so many
things, yet we’re not connecting with one another. In any given day, if you say you’ve talked to a friend or
family member, did you really talk with them? Or did you text them, or Facebook
them? I for one think one of the
greatest tragedies of life is that we’ve bought into this notion that we need
all of this stuff in order to be happy, and that there is no other way to get
this stuff without doing and becoming busy. Then we get to the end of our lives only to realize that
none of those things really made us happy and they really don’t mean as much as
we once thought.
I recently visited a friend and she was telling me about all
the things that have been going on in her life for the past few months. I can’t even remember everything she
said but I know I was exhausted just listening to her tell me about all of
it. But towards the middle of it,
she actually stopped and said, “I mean we’re always going. But it’s not like I’m doing a lot. It
just feels like it.” I think that’s how we’ve become accustomed to living. We do a lot of driving, but we’re not
really taking the time to enjoy the view (no, not Babs and the girls). It’s a struggle to take that quiet time
and recharge, but I know it’s necessary for my well being. And when all is said and done, I want
to know that for all the going I have done, I will be able to say that I have
enjoyed the scenery.
What say you?
Are you constantly on the go and not feeling like you’re getting
anywhere? And where are you going? Do you even know the way to San Jose? (I
love Dionne Warwick by the way!)
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