Busyness is the circumstance of being busy whereas business is an organization of occupation, profession, or career.
The kind of lifestyle in which you are up at 8 a.m. and do not have the chance to stop to catch your breath until 10 p.m. at which point it is time to be productive in preparation for the next day and when next you look up at the clock it is 2 a.m. and you crawl into bed only to get up the next morning to do it all again.
The last three months of my life have followed this model. Okay, really the last three years have been this way for me.
We rush from one class, meeting, or appointment to the next, never stopping to take time to appreciate little things or chat with a friend. Meals turn into 15 minutes of shoveling food into your facial orifice while speedily scrolling through social media and nervously checking the clock. We run around alone and are absolutely certain no one else understands the kind of busyness we are handling and that we must do it all. Time is gone without you knowing where it went and the day is over in the blink of the eye. We justify it by saying, “I just have to get through today/this week/this month/this year/insert an excusable amount of time” when in reality it is never ending.
We are people who remain busy. We are people who think that our time is important, more important than everyone else’s time. “Well I am really busy so you have to work around my schedule.” We are selfish, self-centered, and absolutely full of ourselves. It becomes a habit as we become more busy which then turns into a lifestyle which then turns into who we are because we allow it to mold our personalities.
This is the way of the American lifestyle: Work really hard in high school so that you can get accepted into a good university. Work really hard in college so that you can get a good job. Work really hard at your job so that you can make a career. Work really hard in your career to make a lot of money. Make a lot of money so that you can provide for your family and have all of the luxury and comfort that you can muster. All of this is so that your kids can grow up and also be a part of this cycle.
The introductory question people ask of us upon first meeting is, “What do you do?” where in which they make judgment calls based on the answer. We categorize ourselves and others by the work that we do or what we study. But a major is just a major. A job is a job. Your career is worth pursuing, but it is not who you are unless you allow it to be. We allow what we do define who we are which is entirely not the case.
Unfortunately, this has become normative. It is the measuring stick for what society considers good ambition. It is exhausting and unfulfilling. It is neither healthy nor sustainable. If this much has been proven time and time again, then when will we learn from it instead of making excuses for it?
