Is Busy Really Better?

How often do you hear someone make the comment; “Oh, it’s good to be so busy!” or “I’m crazy busy right, so that’s good!”? Can you recall the last time that you yourself uttered something similar? Usually, there seems to be a sense of mindlessness with such statements. You know, when you’re really not focused on talking to the person you’re saying it to and it just falls out of your mouth through auto-pilot while you’re thinking about something else. Sometimes, we tend to rely on it as an excuse too, right? But is it really good to be so busy?

We’re certainly encouraged to believe it is. Our society has forced us to adopt overly busy lifestyles in order to thrive or even merely survive. Busy, busy, busy. Now we’re at the point where people feel guilty if they take a break from all the worry, the insane rushing around, and the constant stress that it places them under. Guilt is another form of disempowering stress that weighs on you, lowers your vibration, closes your heart, and negatively impacts your well being.

We see it all around us. Hell, we’ve even done it ourselves. We quickly choke down fast food-like garbage from a drive-thru while speeding in our cars from one obligation to the next. We believe that “multi-tasking” is an honorable and desirable skill. We surrender our vacation times and holidays in order to continue this ridiculous pace of daily life that leaves our head swirling. Instead, filling the holidays with multiple obligatory visits that we don’t enjoy or shopping for more crap we don’t need. After work, we frantically drive all over town dragging our kids to participate in after school sporting events and other activities, when they’d rather just be playing with their friends. We dash here and dash there so quickly we never truly engage where we’re at in the moment. Our minds are racing the entire time, focusing on the next item on the list before the present item has even been accomplished. Can you feel the stress levels building just from reading this?

Things have been designed to keep us all overly busy, and the ego loves it. Some of this has been purposely designed, but the majority has been created by our own growing egoic mind. We put this sense of being busy on ourselves so we don’t have to face reality. It’s like sleepwalking while feverishly running around in order to avoid waking up. This way the reality of being unhappy in our relationship, our dead-end minimum wage job, living somewhere we don’t like, or living the life we never really wanted to begin with, never has to be acknowledged.

We use being busy as a distraction. Like cowards, we hide behind it so we never have to face ourselves. We can’t possibly be thinking for our self or expanding spiritually when we’re so busy we can’t even think straight. We have deadlines on top of deadlines and we’re unable to give our full attention to anything. We allow ourselves to be pulled in in every direction by anyone who desires to waste our time. Always facing another day overflowing with activities and obligations. We run around like the proverbial “chicken with it’s head cut off” while accomplishing very little by the end of the day. Except for being too exhausted to participate in, let alone enjoy, intimate time with the one we love.

Of course, society cheers us on as we participate in this senseless race because it validates their own need to be so busy. The members of the herd pat us on the back when we tell them how busy we are; but it’s done from the same sense of mindless auto-pilot that everyone uses. You (your ego) feels good from all this attention, as though you’ve really accomplished something incredible. But the reality of the situation is just the opposite.

I say this is all wrong! We’re doing it wrong and mindlessly perpetuating this wrongness! Stop revering being busy! Put the distractions down and take a deep breath. Be brave. There’s nothing noble about it being busy. It’s not the way human beings were meant to live. It causes stress, poor physical and mental health, and accomplishes little in the grand scheme of things. We run around all day frantically trying to fit everything in while our mind races to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. Meanwhile, its frying our nervous system and negatively impacting our mental and physical health. This is the price to be paid for hiding from our own truth. How is a such a life different from a dog spastically running in circles chasing its tail?

Stop perpetuating the idea that being busy is so good, or so righteous. Stop revering an overly busy lifestyle! Being crazy busy is the path of keeping yourself distracted as you race to the end of your life without attaining anything of real value. Step off of this mindless treadmill and step onto the path of an awakened and fully engaged life.

Make time. Take the time back, it’s yours after all. Spend time relaxing, reflecting, meditating, going for walks in nature, and focusing on what really matters. be honest with yourself and feel if you’re living the life you were meant to live. Slow down and get out of your head. See through the illusion that society has placed before you and step outside of the rat race. Defy the ego and take time to look within, to know who you are honestly and what it is you want to experience from your life. Summon your courage and awaken.

No. Busy is not better.