Being Busy
bus·y
adjective
1.
having a great deal to do. "he had been too busy to enjoy himself"
synonyms:occupied, engaged, involved, employed, working, hard at work; rushed off one's feet, hard-pressed, swamped, up to one's neck; on the job, absorbed, engrossed, immersed, preoccupied; informal(as) busy as a bee, on the go, hard at it.
These days when people ask me how I am, I usually say "busy." If you think about it, its sort of a funny answer. Busy is not an emotion, or a physical state like tired or in pain, yet we use it as if we are describing one.
I have known many people who wear their busyness like a badge that they earned in Cub Scouts, like they're lives must be great because they're always doing something. It seems almost trendy to be the busiest person anyone knows. On the other hand, in this rat race reality, in some circles it is more akin to a harsher set of four letter words. It becomes despised, or at least causes confusion. Why would you live like that? If you're busy all the time, just do less stuff. Sounds simple right? Not always the case.
I've also known people who use it as their ultimate excuse for everything, and I wonder, are they really busy, or are they using it a shield to mask what else is really going on. Maybe even something as serious as depression or a crippling anxiety to spend time with a group. I know I have been guilty of this a time or two.
Some people are legitimately just very busy living full lives, but I find the ones who actually enjoy it, rarely use the word in this context. When you say "I'm so busy right now" I feel like it is hard for that not to sound like a complaint. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather be busy than bored. I am wondering though if I am becoming one of those complaining people. And if so, perhaps I genuinely do not care for being busy. Most of my life people have assumed that I am extremely extroverted. That assumption isn't wrong, but where I find they stray from accuracy is when they also assume that means I don't have an introverted side. Au contraire. Sometimes I crave aloneness, silence, especially when I write. (I still love the Franz Kafka quote "...even the night is not night enough." which he said while describing how alone he needed to be when he wrote. I have even considered getting it as a tattoo...maybe I still am) I live in what most of the year people would describe as a sleepy little town. I miss the hustle and the bustle of a big city often, but I also love waking up to uninterrupted birds chirping with the only thing visible out my bedroom window are trees. If I don't spend time in at least a small group of people socially on a regular basis, I get antsy. The same could be said about having alone time though. As a writer, my inner monologue is rarely quiet, so sometimes I need a break from all the other real life voices to collect my thoughts. I used to think I was weird when I was little, how I always had that running commentary describing everything that was happening, thinking about everyday things in what would have been closer to the stage notes in a play than a stream of consciousness. Now I like to think that it is just my brain practicing to write it's next great piece. Or a brilliant story that just hasn't found it's way out of my fingertips yet. What I am saying is it's a balance, and no one is 100% at either end of the scale. I would say I like being busy, but only with the right things.
I do answer with "I'm busy" a little more than I should these days, but I do think I'm doing an ok job at balancing what makes me busy. Sometimes the reason is that I just have too much work to do. Sometimes my busyness is that I have set aside an evening that is all for me and I know I need it. Overcommitting is hard when your extroverted, overachiever side says "Do everything! Never experience FOMO!" I do genuinely want to keep myself in check and make sure that is not the reason I say yes to things. I seem to preach a lot about choosing your best life, taking the path of your dreams, but in the weeks when I am prioritizing tasks that I don't enjoy in lieu of things that light me up, I'm not being very authentic with those words, am I?
Life gets busy. To Do lists get long. Commitments get dropped. That is just reality. We get but one life, and, we commoner folk anyways, rarely have the ability to spend every waking minute doing exactly what we want to. Or can we? Well, no, because I am never going to love cleaning the bathroom but it has to be done. But the rest of the time, I sure am going to try.