Is your “busy-ness” just an excuse?  

In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, “busy-ness” was declared as the new “status symbol” and “badge of honor” in society.

When I worked in a corporate environment, I certainly saw this. Catching up with a colleague in the hall, the best way to answer the question, “How have you been?” was:

“I’m SOOO busy.”

Which then yielded one of two responses:

“Wow, what’s going on?” (empathy, pity…)

OR

“Me, too! Here’s how busy I’ve been…” (one-upping…)

24/7 workdays, smart phones that spit out your emails at all hours, text messages with the inherent urgency of “now,” yadda, yadda, yadda…

After a while, I realized that the dialogue I had in my head was motivated by justifying my work and my place in the company as being IMPORTANT.

– I wanted to be important.

– I wanted to be recognized as valuable.

– And I was important and valuable because I was so BUSY with all the work that I needed to do.

Today, I know better.

The real skill and gift to yourself and to others is to care for yourself first and to be vigilant about using your energy, time, and schedule. The people who really care and depend on you — your family, friends, church — they need you to NOT be busy so that you can give as much attention, love, and dedication to them….not to your job.

I admire most those who measure Success by finding ways to balance their lives, ruthlessly remove/reduce stressors, delegate because they’re not so arrogant as to believe they’re the “only” ones who can do that task, go home ON TIME and hug their loved ones as soon as they come through the door…and they ACT to make these things happen.