Yep, I have a disease.
It’s called being busy. The dis-ease of being busy. When we are never at ease. *Insert emoji with no mouth.*
But what does being busy really mean, anyway? Isn’t it like the most annoying thing ever to turn down something you really want to do because you’re “busy” doing something else? In the past month I have found myself “too busy,” and frankly, too exhausted from being busy, to do a lot of things I’ve wanted to do… including, but not limited to: going out with my friends on the weekends, catching up with my best friend on the phone (because she is a busy mofo too), writing a New Years cleanse program, working out every day, writing my book (whoops, working on it, I know), cleaning out my closet, and… the worst one yet… really, truly engaging with the people I’m with.
Gasp. I know. I mean I’m there but I’m not sure how THERE I really am. I try my best to abide by the “put your phone away when you’re with people” rule from the social handbook of not being a douchebag, but try as I might to put work out of my mind when I am supposed to be relaxing, it doesn’t always happen. (Okay, it almost never happens.)
Plus, sometimes I feel like being busy and having a workaholic mentality is what leads to success, and then I’m like hellll no am I giving that up for anything. Plans can wait. Relaxing can wait. Friends can wait. Breathing can wait. Wait, what?
At the end of the day, what matters is C O N N E C T I O N. Connection with ourselves, connection with the ones we love, and connection with the universe. Forgive me if I sound a little hippie dippie in saying so, but if you lose your connection with the universe then you’ve got nothing. You’re kind of just floating in space and gravity probably resents how much it works to keep you on your feet.
There are a few things that made me realize that I had developed a bit of the busy-ness disease. ONE was this magnificent quote that was pinned by my sweet photographer for this week’s blog shoot, Katie Shuler:
TWO was this ridiculously interesting article titled The Disease of Being Busy. (Yeah, sorry I didn’t come up with the diagnosis but I still agree with it wholeheartedly.) This quote from the article about asking “How are you?” REALLY stuck out to me:
“I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.”
Then I realized something that kinda sorta freaked me out. I think (sometimes) being “busy” is my defense mechanism for being afraid of what happens if I’m NOT busy. If I don’t say yes to every project, if I don’t surround myself with six million things to do at once to expand the blog and to continue making it interesting and exciting and putting new content out there in the most exciting of ways… then what if, one day, it all goes away?
And then there’s the funny catch 22 that I’ve learned to watch out for in being such an extreme personality – maybe I like being busy. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s not necessarily being busy at all, but rather filling my time with things that fulfill me and lift me up and just keep my day really, really full.
OR MAYBE THERE’S A BALANCE BETWEEN THE TWO.
The important things for me to remember are to never get too busy to spend time with my loved ones and with myself. Connecting with them, and connecting with myself through yoga, meditation, reading, sleep, alone time, etc. are both so, so important. I never want to be that girl who just ups and leaves an important event because she’s too “busy,” or someone who misses out on a real and true moment with a friend or loved one because I was busy thinking about work.
If you’re too busy for your LIFE, then what do you have?
It’s okay to be busy, but only to a point at which you are busy because you enjoy it and/or because it is leading you down a path of enjoyment in the near future. Let’s be busy because we’re human, not busy because we’re trying to be superhuman.
Ya feel me? We’re all cool enough as it is.
And because I am so grateful for the awesome people in my life, here are a few of them (I like to make collages like this in procrastination of writing my book):
Thoughts on the disease of being busy? Has anyone ever experienced busy-ness being destructive to their happiness and wellbeing? How do you find a balance?!