The Insidiousness of “Busy”
"I know you're busy, but . . ." If I had a dollar for every time someone prefaced an invitation to me with this phrase, I could quit my job and live a life of leisure. Reality? Sometimes when someone says that to me, it's simply not true. After hitting a wall last year, I have fought hard to eliminate hurry from my life. Is it full? Yes. Is it too full? Thankfully, most of the time, no. But here's the thing: when someone says that, it triggers something in me. It probably triggers something in all of us. Something that doesn't feed anything good. That word infers value. It implies that we're in demand. We like to be in demand, don't we? While we might tire of our overscheduled lives, there's a reason we keep doing it. That word reinforces our tendency to overschedule, overwork, overdo. It doesn't invite us to freedom. In fact, it subtly tells us, "You should be busy. That's how we do it around here." It also diminishes the speaker. "I'm probably not as important as everything you have going on." There's an unconscious out we give people in such a statement that says, "Your busy life can trump me." That word limits us. If I am busy when someone makes that statement, they've just justified me overdoing it. If I'm not, they've implied I should be. There's no freedom to rest, no invitation to slow down. Busyness is a cultural expectation. How often do you hear someone say, in response to an inquiry about how they're doing, "Yeah, you know, we're really busy!" We say it with a smile and a shrug, like, "What can we do?"As though it's something that happened to us, rather than something we've chosen. We say we don't like it, but we continue to agree to it. And it's killing us. How Busy Hurts Us Busy undermines our ability to live well. All throughout scripture, God calls us to be people of rest, people who love others well, people who live in peace and joy. How do we do that when we barely have space to breathe? Busy keeps us isolated, ironically. While we might encounter people in all our activities, rarely are there places where we sit and live slowly, deeply, intentionally with others. It's sports practice or business dinners, church functions or birthday parties. Fun? Usually. Restful? Rarely. The word itself, when we speak it over one another, keeps our eyes fixed on the wrong things. It tells us to value that which the world values. It reinforces that our worth comes from our productivity. We fear slowing down means we'll miss out. It keeps us on an exhausting ride. So What Should We Do? I realize there will always be seasons of busyness for each of us. What we must guard against is them becoming continuous seasons. [ictt-tweet-inline]When a season of busyness simply leads to another season of busyness, then what you have is not seasons: it's a…