The ‘Busy’ Trap

I read this great article this morning that one of my Facebook Friends posted on their timeline called The ‘Busy’ Trap, written by Tim Kreider.  The first paragraph immediately drew me in:

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

Ahhh….if that isn’t me, I don’t ever know who I am.  I’m ALWAYS saying I’m “so busy”, and it’s true, but it’s completely self inflicted!  I’M the one who signs up to coach a track team (or two) after work.   I’M the one who insists on running, doing p90x, and getting up insanely early to go to Bikram Yoga once or twice a week.  I’M the one who volunteers to help out friends to achieve their goals. And, I’M the one who still tries to have somewhat of a social life with my family, friends, and boyfriend.

I guess somehow I think the more things I do, the better all around gal I’ll be.  Taking a step outside my own body and looking at how stupid that statement is really cracks me up.  “Better” how? I’m now asking myself.  Is being sleep deprived, annoyed, frustrated, and stressed out making me a better person?  Probably  not.  Does anyone care if I do any of the above mentioned activities?  Again, probably not.  I love that this article opened my eyes to many things and really put some meaning into the phrase “take time to stop and smell the roses”.  Merely doing things to do them, but not getting enjoyment out of them is pretty pointless.

Though I’m saying this now, I was still the one that got up at 4:45AM to ride my bike 10 miles, write this blog post, go to work, run errands on my lunch break, go running and do p90x after work, make dinner, fulfill a prior commitment, do household chores, and going to see fireworks tonight.  Where does it end!  I need to start realizing, and more importantly, living by the thought that life is about the making the moments matter, and enjoying what  you do…not just packing the most things into everyday that you can.  Now lets just see if i can do something about this for myself!