So let’s be real here…..being busy sucks. Our society thinks being busy is a badge of honor and it supposedly makes people seem to lead important lives because they have so much to do. It seems that the more busy you are, the more you are admired and thought of as an important person.
This seems backwards because being busy actually sucks. It isn’t something we should be proud of and isn’t something we should honor in our society because it leads to people always saying yes to everything, feeling like they need to accomplish everything and do everything which leads to being stressed and burnt out.
I know this because I’ve been one of those people. I always thrived on being busy because it feels like you are accomplishing things, which is something I always thought I needed to do.
Being too busy has been a downfall of mine several times throughout life. For example, when I was younger I wanted to be in every sport there was, play musical instruments, be in the play, be in dance and anything else I could to keep busy. After I graduated college, I had a full time job, two part time jobs, and was taking additional college classes to sit for my CPA. I used to get sick because I was working 70-80 hours a week and rarely took time to rest.
It seems that I never learn because I did this to myself again this year. Last week specifically, we had to deal with water in our basement, I hosted a Beautycounter event, I found out I had to travel to Chicago this week for my full time work gig, I was studying for a test for yoga class, building a 75 minute class blueprint that I had to teach that weekend, and prepping to teach for a yoga event during the weekend. I wrote a blog post somewhere in that week too. Not to mention, my girls have not been sleeping great, which means Ryan and I haven’t been sleeping great. And on top of all of that, I wasn’t feeling great last week so I ended up at the doctor’s office.
Turn’s out, I checked out just fine at the doctor’s office. The only thing the doctor could point to was that my busy lifestyle was making me sick. When I told him everything I was doing….full time job with travel, yoga teacher training, Beautycounter consultant, blogger, mom of two young girls (both of whom haven’t been sleeping great), etc. he was like…”yea that’s likely what is causing you to not feel well….you are doing too much”.
I was kind of surprised by that comment from him because I was accomplishing so many things, how can that be a bad thing? However, I agreed that it was just too much and I wasn’t being present in life or taking any time to rest. I was going through the motions to get through my long to-do lists.
So when the weekend came, I went to my yoga teacher training and I was just a hot mess. I didn’t know where to go next in my big to-do list of things to accomplish in life because according to my doctor, I needed to scratch a few things from the list but I had no idea where to start. Thankfully, my fellow yoga students and teachers are a very supportive community of great people and they really lifted me up. They reminded me that saying “no” was much more powerful than always saying “yes.”
Then on the last day of our weekend, our teacher reminded us all that we need to find time to pause in our lives because that’s where you can really find the joy in life. This hit home with me. Despite societal expectations, we don’t always have to fill our space with things to make ourselves busy. There is actually more joy in the pauses of life.
Her advice plus some great conversations with some fellow yoga students gave me the courage I needed to really face my long to-do list and decide what was important to me and what I wanted to remove. I decided that a new role at work that includes added travel isn’t something that I want to pursue because it puts too much of a burden on me and my family. Although this decision may limit my career trajectory for the moment, I am at peace with that risk because there are more important things on my list, like time with my family.
I don’t have it all figured out yet but I feel like I am on the right path. I am removing the things in life that make me feel busy and filling it with things that make my heart feel full because I am focusing on the things that really bring me joy.
Are you busy? Do you think it has become a badge of honor in our society?
