Busy to Distraction

When I was a pastor, my colleague who had been at the congregation 15 plus years when I arrived, was always running. His cell phone was constantly barking at him; clipped to his waist it rarely stayed in the holster longer than a few minutes. When we had scheduled meetings, he’d fly-in at the last minute, out of breath with phone moving from ear to holster.  At the end of it, he’d head out immediately to his “next important meeting,” phone always (always) being pulled toward his ear as he walked out the door.

It was intimidating. That is, until I discovered that this person actually did very little. 

This experience, combined with my personal history of growing up in a house that praised busyness while deriding anything seemingly sedentary, got me thinking. Why does it appear that we love being “crazy busy?”

We live in a culture obsessed with constant movement, packed schedules, and being “busy, busy, busy!” Whenever I hear anyone say that word more than once-in-a-row, I can’t help but hear the voice of the Magician in the TV production of Frosty the Snowman. You know the scene, the long-legged, top-hatted entertainer & scumbag is trying to ignore Santa, so he says “No time to talk, busy, busy, busy” as he zooms over hill and yonder, away from the truth of his reality and his choices.

It’s an insightful metaphor. Somehow we have been trained to think of ourselves and others as worthy, good people the more “crazed and busy” we are.  Regularly, when I greet someone with the words ‘How are you?’ I am met with rolling eyes, shaking head and appropriately stressed smile. “Oh my gosh,” the person says, “Crazy! Things are so busy… one thing after another.  So hard to keep up.” Or another of my favorites is,  “This week has been so chaotic!... I barely have time to breathe!” And another that tops the list is “Oh man, I am just running all the time…” Each of which leads to an exhalation of dramatic breath followed by, “What about you?”

It’s almost a comparison of who can out-crazy-schedule the other.

The problem (and I do think it is a problem) isn’t that people are busy with schedules that are full, productive and life-giving. The way in which we talk about our days isn’t with affirmation of the goodness coming from the “running around” or “chaotic days”. It approaches a sort of badge of honor that we wear proudly to prove that we have earned something. What? Is it our worth?  A mark of success?

I think it is a problem because we have convinced ourselves that the more we fill up our days with appointments & events and the louder our phones screech with announcements of Facebook likes, Twitter RT’s and text messages, the more value we have as a person. I come to this conclusion because when queried with “How are you?” people are not saying “I am really good. I have a full day and a lot of time consuming connections, and I love it.” They’re responding with harried, heavy breathing and shaking heads. I also am convinced it’s a problem because in the midst of all this “running around” we are not collectively getting healthier. We clearly are not getting good aerobic or anaerobic activity from being “on the go”. We are getting fatter with ever growing incidence of diabetes and heart disease, blood pressure and other diseases due to being overweight and out of shape.

A final reason I think our “Chaotic days” are a problem is because, like the Magician, we use the busyness to get ever further away from the reality of our true selves. Slowing down means more time to think, reflect and feel ourselves. Are we happy? What is happy? What do I really want? What do I honestly think of myself and why? Why am I choosing to work at what I am doing? Why am I in this relationship? What does it mean that I am a ___________ (fill in the blank, Christian, Muslim, Atheist)? Why do I laugh at jokes deriding homosexuals? And on and on.

When our days are “filled” with “one thing after another” we don’t have to face those uncertainties, questions or ponderings that are part of a life-aware. To be present in the moment of our days means to engage fully with the realities in which we exist, whether they be friendly or challenging truths, a healthy, grounded and happy person faces them. The distractions from an overly packed, smart phone yelping life enable you and me to get further away from that work and therefore, a much less honestly full life.

Let’s begin this New Year with a resolution to be less like the “busy, busy, busy” of Frosty’s Magician and commit to being open to making honestly core-Good magic within ourselves & to share with others. To talk more about this work, give me a holler below or on Facebook, Twitter or my website. Use these oft-times social distractions to slow it down and blaze a new trail for 2013!