Every Monday, I share 1 question for you to contemplate, 1 idea from me, 1 quote from others, and 1 inspiration for us.
This week’s topic is: Busy
Colleague: "How are you?"
You: "BUSY!"
Sound familiar?
In today’s society, busy is such a common and recycled response that supports a culture where being busy is both a reason to complain and an addiction, a distraction and a status symbol, an armour and a medal of honour, a way of staying comfortable and a coping mechanism.
One Question for you
To stop the glorification of busy, we need to change our mindset and re-define what it means to be productive. Productivity is not about doing more; it’s about making time for what matters the most.
Discuss the question here.
One Idea from me
This week I invite you to participate in a challenge, reflect on a concept and explore a practice related to the concept of "busy".
The challenge: This week I invite you to make an effort not to respond with “busy” when asked how are you. When you are asked this question, pause for a moment and determine how and what you want to respond. While not choosing the word “busy” won’t simply remove the feeling of haste or having too much to do, not including the word “busy” in your response may help you to identify the activities that don’t add value and the ones that deserve your full attention, awareness and intent.
The concept: Many individuals pack their schedules to bursting point due to the fear of missing out. FOMO (fear of missing out) is very real in today’s always-on world. We constantly check for the next social media post, email, to-do or news headline. It takes practice to willingly miss out on these stimuli and re-condition yourself. JOMO (joy of missing out) is described as the “emotionally intelligent antidote to FOMO” and is essentially about being mindfully present, being more intentional with your time and reconnect with yourself. This week I invite you to create some opportunities where you can replace FOMO with JOMO and reflect on the question: How can you cultivate more JOMO in your life?
The practice: The glorification of busy is based on various belief systems. One of them is that hard work is morally superior to rest and that one person’s worth is connected to their productivity. Another one is the belief that the more you do, the more productive you are. For many individuals, there is also a true desire for busyness and always finding something to do at the cost of being in the present moment. Busy is used as a simple distraction technique to numb oneself in order not to face uncomfortable truths. There is a lot to unpack here, so this week I encourage you to take some time to reflect on your relationship with “busy” and answer the following questions:
What are you busy doing?
Are you busy with the right things?
What’s the impact of being busy in your life?
Why do you feel the need to stay busy?
What pain or discomfort are you trying to protect yourself from?
How can you find both movement and stillness in your life?
One Quote from others
“Crazy-busy' is a great armor, it's a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we're feeling and what we really need can't catch up with us”. Brené Brown
One Inspiration for us
In their paper “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language” Philosophers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson describe how the “time as resource” metaphor changes our relationship with time. “Cultures in which time is not conceptualized and institutionalized as a resource”, they write, “remind us that time in itself is not inherently resource-like. There are people in the world who live their lives without even the idea of budgeting time or worrying if they are wasting it.” Inspired by this concept, this week, I share an article written by Amina Rakhmankulova who explores how different cultures understand time and their relationship with the concept of being busy. Enjoy!
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