Busy: a disease

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” — Socrates

Let me just first start out by saying the concept that we have about being busy is BS.

We correlate a happy, healthy, fulfilling life with a busy life.

 I admit I fell into this notion too, but after thinking about it, I disagree with the fact that we have to be busy to be happy or successful.

We believe that people will think more highly of us if we are always busy. And that people will crave our time even more if they know we don't have much time to give to them.

But how does neglecting our loved ones attention and time make being busy so fulfilling?

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I always thought being busy was going to solve all of my problems.

That I would be happier, that I would be more desired, and that I would somehow find true lives fulfillment from it.

What happened to the days that we sit with our loved ones, have slow meaningful conversations in which we express our heart and soul to one another while being in no rush for it to end.

I don't know about you but being busy makes me stressed out. Being busy distracts me from what is most important in life. And being busy often takes time from the things I love.

In this "keeping up with the Joneses" society that we live in we believe that the busier we are the better. That we have to compete with others for validation that we are producing and creating and working "enough".

We have created this world where we have bombarded ourselves with obligation and have left little-to-no time for leisure, less time to just be, and less time to just reflect.

Even when we do have leisure time, we are then sucked in by devices. We are on our phones all the freaking time! So our small amount of leisure time, is actually not leisure time at all.

Somehow being busy comes with a badge of honor because we think people who aren't busy aren't important or even hard working.

When you are busy you are most likely multi-tasking and this causes more chances of making mistakes.

We think that productivity increases when we are able to multitask, but our brain often can't concentrate on two things at the same time and give them equal time and effort. This causes a lack of success and a decrease in performance in the long run.

Humans today are so caught up in getting more and more things done in a shorter time, but that isn't the answer.

Are we really living our lives to the fullest if we are always busy?

And is craving business healthy?

I don't think we realize that sitting back, drinking tea (or beer) and reading a book or taking in a scenery is the ultimate way to not be busy.

We are losing the ability to have a real, tangible, human life.

We have turned into machines that check off things on to-do lists. And that is how we measure our success and worth today.

Stop overloading yourself, stop thinking "I'll be better if I do more", and lastly slow down, breathe, take a break, do nothing for a while. I guarantee you, you will regret being busy.