There are a lot of bandwagons I have jumped on (hello Bachelor Mondays). There are also a lot of wagons I have refused to ride on. One of those is this glorification of being busy. It seems like we applaud people who have two jobs, a full courseload, and are involved in three different organizations. The first time I noticed this was in high school. Specifically, I remember sitting in my high school auditorium listening to our guidance counselor's college introduction speech. We were told to take challenging classes and to get involved, get involved, get involved!
Fast forward a year or two to the first day of college. What is one piece of advice that I'm sure we all heard? "Go to the student organization fair and sign up for as many organizations/clubs/activities that interest you!" Don't get me wrong, this is awesome advice for first year students who are trying to discover their passions and interests. The problem arises, however, when people can't say no to an activity or position. It seems that the new norm, in college and the "real world," is being able to say you're involved in three different clubs, you're the president of an organization, you work part time, and, oh yeah, you're going to college full time too. People pride themselves on only getting three hours of sleep the night before and running on coffee the following day. It seems many people are running around from one activity to the next without taking a second to eat or, heck, even breathe. It's an interesting paradox, though, because we choose to make ourselves busy to say, "Look, look how much I'm doing!" But the second we get done doing it, we complain about how busy and stressed we are. I'm tired of it and I hope you are too. We don't have to accept this busy culture we live in.
Now, what I'm not saying is don't do anything. I'm not promoting sitting around all the time day dreaming. But, I'm also not promoting running around like a chicken with your head cut off. What I do want is this: balance. That's hard to master. I haven't mastered it, and I doubt many people have. Also, balance looks different for everyone. So we mustn't compare what we are doing to someone else because we are all different.
What are you currently doing or involved in? Do you feel like most days go by and you're running around trying to complete everything only to come home at night, defeated? Hop off the hamster wheel. Take a step back. What are you doing and are you doing it well? Choose a few things to do that you are passionate about and give them your all. If you devote yourself to being involved in your passions, it won't feel like busywork. It will be purposeful work.
You can do as much as you want, but if you're not giving your best effort to everything then you're only hurting yourself in the long run. Guess what? In the end, no one cares how involved you are, how much money you have, or how busy you are.
So, slow down. You don't have to accept this busyness. It's perfectly OK to be doing a few things, but do them well. It's perfectly OK to allow yourself to relax a little bit.
