This week I opened up the subject of busy being busy on my Instagram. I have friends that I haven’t spoken to in months, because they say they are crazy busy. No judgement here. I know what it’s like to be busy, but I try to never express my busyness to people.
"I am so busy" seems like a default response for most people these days. It's like an automatic response to questions we might receive from the people in our lives.
“How are you?”
“Don’t ask. I am so busy”
Now, I get it. I really do. I know lots of us really are busy, so maybe these responses are justified. However, sometimes we need to take a closer look at what exactly we are busy with.
Most people identify being busy with being successful. But unlike most of the people I know, I don’t think to be busy means you’re successful.
Every time you say you’re busy, you’re actually saying that you can’t prioritise your life. When you meet people, they often want to show you that they have busy lives. A full calendar must mean that I’m popular/relevant/needed/important.
The truth is: If you’re crazy busy all of the time, you don’t live at all. You simply exist.
Especially since we waste most of our time on nonsense. We say we’re busy but in reality, we just fill up our lives with things that don’t bring us much benefit.
We binge-watch TV shows for days, we spend hours finding new clothes to buy so we can impress people we don’t even like, we spend hours on end scrolling on Instagram and Snapchat.
“But if I’m not busy, what should I do?” you ask.
Slow down there. Take a step back. And think about which things in your life that make you ‘busy ’ and are not meaningful or productive.
It’s absolutely fine if you don’t have plans for the weekend. People love to ask ‘What did you do over the weekend?’ You don’t have to do things so you can tell others about it. If people ask me, this is what I say: “Nothing.”
When you’re busy, time moves so fast. Sometimes I want time to move slow. That’s why I only say yes to things that matter to me.
All you have to do is slow down, stop being busy, don’t forget about important things, and live a conscious life.
It’s not that difficult, right? You can start now.
