Being too busy is our way of life By LEIGH LANDINI WRIGHT Community Columnist We meet in the hallways, by the copier, around a conference table or even in the middle of campus or the grocery store. A typical conversation goes something like this: So how are you? I havent seen you in forever. Oh, you know, busy, the harried person replies, as she shuffles papers and balances bags overflowing with technology and paperwork. Im always running from here to there. Transporting one kid to an activity or another kid somewhere else. Meetings. You know how it is. Its these types of conversations that I have with people almost everywhere I go from ballgames to chaperoning middle school band parties to church to the grocery to evenings out with friends. Our friends at Merriam-Webster define busy as an adjective meaning actively doing something or engaged in action. As a society, the term busy has become the new normal. We are all guilty. Were constantly doing something, even when were supposed to be relaxing and enjoying a quieter moment of life on a weekend or vacation. Many of us feel as if we have to be doing something in order to prove our productivity and effectiveness to employers, friends or even our own family. Whether we scrawl our to-do lists in a planner or in an online app, we feel as if every moment of every day has to be accounted for with an activity. Ask any mother, whether she works or stays home, and she likely will say how busy she is with shuttling children from one activity to another or how busy she is with supervising activities or volunteering in the community. Some parents begin their days with taking a child to an early-morning athletic practice and end their days well after sundown as they pick up a child from sports or an extracurricular activity. Thats not even including the parents own work and community service obligations. Or including those little tasks like housework, grocery shopping, bill paying, etc. But how are we really spending our time? According to the American Time Use Survey in 2013, we worked an average of 7.6 hours a day and enjoyed leisure time for two to 4.5 hours, depending whether we have children or not. Those of us with children reported less leisure time than those with empty nests. Not surprising. Are we forgetting how to unwind and take time for ourselves? Or is it that weve become the culture where busy is more valued than leisure? Ann Burnett, a communications professor and director of Women and Gender Studies at North Dakota State University, has collected and analyzed 1,200 holiday letters. Burnett and her co-authors Becky DeGreef and Dennis Cooley found only 5 percent of letters analyzed for their article in the Journal of Happiness could actually be dubbed as authentic - 83 percent were considered inauthentic. The inauthentic letters featured bulleted listings of happenings without any explanation, or the lets try to one-up each other in the Battle over Busy. Burnett wrote about one letter and included this quote: We start every day at 4:45 a.m., launch ourselves through the day at breakneck speed (the experience is much like sticking your head in a blender), only to land in a crumpled heap at 8:30 p.m., looking like the Halloween witches impaled spread-eagle on front doors, wondering how we made it through the day. And the scary part is that our lives are no more hectic and stressful than yours are. How many of us feel that way but would never admit to it in our holiday cards, except for a bulleted list of accomplishments. Were entering the crazy season of busyness as the holidays approach. Parties. Work obligations. School programs. Church programs. Endless errands. Gift wrapping. Baking. The shopping. Cleaning the house for relatives to show up. Those horrible holiday letters detailing the Battle Over Busy. Im exhausted just thinking about it. So rather than playing the game at the Thanksgiving or Christmas table of Ill see you a Busy and Raise you another Busy, perhaps we should enjoy the moment. Turn off the smartphones, the reminders, the constant ding of an electronic calendar. Who are we competing with and why should being busy become a game? Busy isnt a game. Its not a state of being. Busy is busy, and we should stop trying to busy ourselves with staying busy. Its time to unwind and enjoy the moments. Leigh Landini Wright is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at Murray State University. She previously worked as a reporter and editor for The Paducah Sun.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 20:56:43 +0000
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