Do you ever feel like life is completely overwhelming? Maybe your commitments are spreading you so thin that you are losing sight of actual purpose. Maybe your life is a constantly overbooked schedule that causes more negative and stress than it does positive. Maybe you are going through a difficult time. Maybe you are worried, worn and weary. Maybe your commitments, your worries and your fears are taking over your life and making you lose sight of who you are.

Let me encourage you. These things do not define you.

Our culture seems to thrive on looking busy. We worship the image of being busy. In college we feel pressured to commit to every group, club, or organization that might slightly relate to where we are going in life. We feel pressured to do volunteer work. We feel pressured to make good grades. We feel pressured to live overly committed, busy, perfection-oriented, stress-filled lives. We have hectic schedules that never allow time for others, pleasure or rest.

And all for what?

Don't get me wrong, none of these things themselves are necessarily bad. What is bad, though, is when we make being busy our ultimate goal in life. What is bad is when being busy wears us down mentally and physically. What is bad is when we make our lives more complicated than they should be on the pretense of having too many important commitments. What is bad is when we misplace our priorities as a result of being too busy and our families and friends – real people – get put on a lower priority than our extraneous, less important commitments. What is bad is when relationships are hurt because nobody has time for one another anymore.

Our culture worships being busy, but what if we have our priorities mixed up?

This is a call to evaluate our priorities and commitments. This is a call to simplify our lives. This is a call to put people first and extraneous commitments last. This is a call to live lives of purpose. People are more important than being busy. Relationships are more important than commitments. Our schedules, volunteer work, jobs, clubs, organizations and anything else that is a part of our lives are not the things that define who we are.

What is inside of our hearts defines who we are. How we love, care-for and interact with one another defines who we are. Joy and purpose should define us.

And, if we are so busy that we wear ourselves down physically...if we are breaking down mentally from the stress, worry and fears of life, then we have lost that joy and purpose. These negative things do not define us either, but if we are compromising our health, then what is the purpose of being busy? What is the purpose of anything that we are doing?

So, I challenge you to evaluate your life. Don't be afraid to simplify. Don't be afraid to cut out the negative things. Don't be afraid to say no to commitments. Don't be afraid to remove the unecessary and live a different lifestyle. Take care of yourself. Prioritize the right things. Don't forget who you are. There is so much more to life than looking busy.