A colleague of mine recently confided to me that she was exasperated with always hearing everyone say how busy they are. She shared with me that she doesn’t appreciate hearing people habitually lamenting their busyness as if they are victims of their own lives.
After a few moments of self reflection I realized that I too am guilty of telling people that my life is so “busy”.
With this new-found awareness of a very old and deeply-ingrained default response, I took a moment to reflect on what it means to say I’m “busy”.
Here are my insights.
Let’s face it, who isn’t busy? So why do so many of us default to defining our lives this way?
For many of us we see being busy as a badge of honor, something to be proud of. But should we? Not when it comes to health and wellness.
I, as many of us do, like to let the world know that I am busy. We all feel the need to announce our importance to the world and somewhere along my path in life being “busy” became my go-to statement.
Here comes my reality check. This is what I found out about myself.
First, let’s take this from how I want people to see me. I say I’m “busy” to demonstrate that the world needs me. That in some way I’m important and possibly indispensable.
Secondly, what am I communicating to myself when I say I’m “busy”? For me, there are two parts to it. Namely, I am announcing the feeling of being over-obligated, overwhelmed, and to some extent feeling burned out on certain aspects of life. The other part is me setting myself up with a big excuse as to why I can or should delay or even skip doing things like exercise, meditation, or reading.
The unearthing of this personal reality was definitely an ah-ha moment for me.
Bottom line, telling the world how busy we are to establish our value is not as concerning as how we use it to tell ourselves that we don’t have time for self-care. We can come up with any number of new ways of projecting our self image to the world, but it’s not so easy when we need to be honest with ourselves.
The irony in it all is while we are trying to establish an outward image of importance we are at the same time robbing ourselves of self-importance.
What I really need to be telling myself is that I am important. I am NOT too busy for me.
Life is busy. Let’s face it, we don’t need to announce that any more. So when you are asked how you are doing it’s probably a good time to take stock in offering yourself a real answer. How are you doing?
I bet you could use some down time and a little self-love and care.
Just remember that if you find yourself using the excuse of being “busy”, be careful that you’re not just avoiding yourself and what you need to do to be well. You are all you have, invest your time well. You’re worth it!
Beware the barrenness of a busy life. -Socrates
