I read a great article this week on The New York Times that resonated with me on several levels and it is something everyone should read. I’m leaving a link to that article at the end of this post. In the article ‘The ‘Busy’ Trap’, author Tim Kreider takes a look into our every day stressed out, anxiety ridden “busy” lives. His raises and answers some fundamental questions – Why ARE we busy? Do we HAVE to be busy? This article got me thinking.
If we notice today, everyone is busy. From an 8th class student who aspires to get into IIT (Indian equivalent to Ivy league), a college grad who interns in 2 offices, to a business man studying for extra certifications in his free time – all are busy. Our blackberries never stop blinking, laptops never get closed. We add lot of work to our lives consciously; and in the guise of being ‘busy’ we drive ourselves to exhaustion and unhappiness. But, don’t we all have to do this to survive in this competitve world? But, is this what a person would choose to do in his free time? No. No rational person would like to be busy for the sake of being busy. Then why ARE we always busy? The reasons run deep.
I believe we fall into this trap because:
- We are afraid to take responsibility of our life
- We equate ‘being busy’ with meaningful life.
In an old post of mine, I asked, ‘what are we afraid of? why do we hand over our lives to offices, schools, or some other institutions capable of dictating our every waking moment? why do we go on autopilot? why are we so afraid of taking our life into our own hands?’ We are afraid of taking responsibility of life for two reasons:
- We are running away from something.
- We don’t know what to do with our life.
What are we running away from? Failure? Pain? Responsibility? Or is busyness a kind of existential reassurance? a hedge against emptiness? Whatever it may be, we all need to face it – face the skeletons in our cupboard. We need to realize whatever happens in our life is because of our choices. Today is the result of yesterdays choices. Tomorrow is of today’s. We need to accept this. I love this quote from Rocky: “it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!” So, let’s pull up our socks, and take control.
Sometimes, we don’t know what to do with our life. We don’t know how to find direction/meaning in life. Philosophers have searched the answer to this question for ages with no result. How am I now going to find an answer and how am I going to distill it down to a blog post? I’m not trying to. And I’m not proposing any solutions here. But, I say we all have to realize that we need to start somewhere, wherever we are, with whatever we have in our hands. But, how? Few ways:
- List your hopes & dreams. Don’t limit them by your circumstance or judge them. What would you do if you had the time, money, effort, energy and passion to do whatever you want to do.
- Take your life inventory: What talents or characteristics do you possess that are special? Take note of moments in life when you were appreciated, when you felt you contributed, when you were proud of what you did, when you felt alive, when you lost track of time, When you were the most excited. What were you doing then? the answer holds the key to your heart’s desire.
- Do something about it. Take small steps. Build confidence. Most importantly, don’t give up. Persevere. Show up everyday. Don’t quit. Make it a habit to do something about it everyday.
Life starts to be more meaningful when we recognize and do what our heart truly wants. We’ll engage more with life. We’ll enjoy the ‘now’. We’ll seize our life. We’ll know what to do with our life.
Another reason I believe we fall into this ‘busy’ trap is because we always believe we can be more productive (I’m no exception), we can do more, we can always be better than who we are. ‘Probably handling more will make my life meaningful’ it’s this thinking that leads us to take on more. We want to make the most of every minute. We cram every free moment with stuff to do. Driving? Why not listen to an audio book. Waiting in line? why not call someone. Got time before a meeting? why not send an email. We’ve come to an extent where we believe free time is unproductive time. But, ‘What about joy? What about the sensory pleasure of lying in the grass with the sun shining on our closed eyes? What about the beauty of a nap while on the train? How about reading a novel for the sheer exhilaration of it, not to better yourself? What about spending time with someone for the love of being with someone, of making a genuine human connection that is unencumbered by productive purpose, unburdened by goals’1 We need to unplug more often. We need to relax more often. We need to be and not do more often. As the smirnoff vodka ad goes, ‘life is calling, where are you? There’s more to life than cramming every second of it with work. At the end of the day when we die, no one is going to remember how fast you replied to their emails, how many reports we generated, how many lines of code we wrote. What people will remember is, how we touched their lives. And, what is productivity? isn’t it getting the ‘right’ things done?
So, next time when you are ‘busy’, ask yourself ‘why?’
1: Quote by Leo Babauta
VEry Nice one hero……………………….