Busy-ness

All around me, people are busy. And not just busy, but BUSY. Some people are busy by choice. Their evenings and weekends are filled with social engagements – parties, dinners, concerts, charity functions, after-work cocktails, weekend getaways. Others seem to be busy by circumstance – a job with crazy hours or pesky children requiring constant attention. And then there are the really busy who are afflicted by some combination of both. Of course, you also have the people who claim to be busy, but you’re not so sure that they really are busy or if they just think they’re busy. But either way, everyone looks pretty damn busy.

Me, I’m not busy.

I mean sure, I go to an office most days, but I usually find time while I’m there to surf http://www.msn.com/, http://www.cnn.com/, even http://www.rachaelraymag.com/ (or any of my other favorite websites now listed to your right if you scroll down a bit). I almost always have some time to reply to a few emails; I might even pass along an obnoxious forward or two. I get some work done, of course, and perhaps I add a thousand words or so to my novel, but I usually leave the office by four or five. After work, I might go to the gym or stop at the grocery store, but either way I’m home by six-thirty. Then I cook dinner, force my husband to sit at the table with me while we eat, and by seven-thirty or eight we’re watching television.

I gage my level of busy-ness (pronounced slightly differently the word business might be appropriate here, but http://www.dictionary.com/ says that usage is obsolete. Funny, huh?) by the amount of time I spend in front of the TV. I figure if I have enough time at the end of my day to do absolutely nothing in front of the television, I’m probably not that busy. Some days are relatively busy, I suppose. Days when I only watch an hour of television as opposed to three (oh don’t act so shocked, I can’t be the only one that occasionally spends three solid hours in front of the television). But this isn’t about television. This is about being busy. Or not busy in my case.

It’s nice – not being busy – but, for me, it creates a lot of pressure. I’m one of the few people on the planet who isn’t busy, so shouldn’t I be doing something marvelous with this gift of time? I mean, isn’t everyone always saying “If only I weren’t so busy…”? Well, I’m not, but unfortunately, I don’t have a hell of a lot to show for it.

The thing about not being busy, is that sometimes you can feel busy, when you know without question that you aren’t. I know this firsthand because occasionally even I feel busy. And how could I possibly be busy? I don’t have a full time job, no babies to bother me, no overflowing social calendar…and yet even I manage to run out of hours in the day (and for some reason, those two in front of the television don’t count!).

I suppose it’s the constant to-do list in my head. I tend to set what seem like reasonable goals, and yet I am forever failing to achieve them. So I sit in front of the TV with my husband, beating myself up for indulging my laziness, but instead of turning the damn thing off, I readjust my mental to-do list and tack on whatever I have failed to achieve that day onto tomorrow’s list – most assuredly setting myself up for failure once more. I think it’s this cycle that makes me feel busy. For surely, it's being busy that prevents me from reaching these goals and not the time I spent printing out recipes that I’m too busy to cook or the hour I spent looking up an author I’m too busy to read or the time in front of the television watching something I’m too busy to focus on.

The thing is if I actually did everything I ‘should’ do, well, I guess I’d be pretty busy. If I wrote two thousand words a day in addition to the work I get paid for…if I tried all those recipes I find online…if I read all the ‘smart books’ on my current to-read list (but reading doesn’t really make you ‘busy’ now does it?)…if I volunteered for a charitable organization…if I learned to speak a foreign language…even if I just organized all the photos on my hard drive, or cleaned out my closet, or started my own herb garden…then I might be busy. But I don’t, so I’m not.

Sometimes I feel kinda bad about not being busy. After all, don’t most people equate being busy with being important? Hmmm. I won’t allow myself to think of it that way. Instead, I am embracing this less-than-busy lifestyle of mine. Because one day, when I’m juggling projects at work and trying to raise a family (not to mention doing my own ironing), I’m sure I will look back and laugh at this version of me who gets stressed about one little deadline at the office and thinks writing a weekly blog makes me ‘busy’. I will wistfully remember these endless days in Africa when I had the time to contemplate the meaning of being busy.

But that's all the contemplating I'll do for today... After all, you are probably far too busy to be reading this blog anyway.