Being busy is great, isn’t it? It makes you feel and sound so purposeful, so important. But actually I think being busy is often just lazy. It is an excuse for not prioritising – for allowing business and work to trump things that are more important. It allows us to avoid making conscious choices. It blinds us to the simple things life offers us every day (beauty, a kind word with a stranger, the smell of fresh bread and so on). It excuses us from honoring our commitments to the people we love (“Sorry I didn’t call/visit/ask/turn up – I was busy”).
I think we should stop the lazy approach that allows us to be busy the whole time and be properly lazy instead and build in time with no goal or purpose. Time to lie fallow, to allow ideas to mature, connect or emerge without forcing them. Time to ‘visit’ with ourselves, as my American friends put it. Even if all you want is to be as productive as possible, being busy isn’t the best way to achieve it. And if you want a creative, fulfilling, satisfying life then being constantly busy is a sure way to ensure you don’t get it.
