B U S Y ?

A couple of weeks ago I read this great blog post from The Anna Edit all about how not to get consumed and overwhelmed by being busy and it really got me thinking. The word busy is everywhere - you read it, you hear it, whenever you meet up with people you haven't seen for a while it's almost always the first word that is spoken by both of you - it's definitely a way of life now rather than just a word. The thing that tipped me over the edge and prompted this post was an email I was copied in to, in which someone had replied to the question 'how are you?' with (and I quote word for word here) "Frankly, I am insanely busy" ... I'd never seen anything like it! Such a weird thing to say to people that you have never met! 

So are we all busy? Or is it, as I've suggested above, really just how life is these days?

If you're going to be literal, then yes, I am very busy. I rarely have time to myself, I often don't sit down on an evening until 9pm, on weekends we have commitments and family responsibilities, but do I think of myself as busy? Not really, it's just kind of what we do. 

We always have the olds in our family expressing concern for us both - oh life is so changed these days, everyone is so busy, there's no time for people to catch their breath. I wonder what it must be like to look at it from the outside? Does it look like a massive whirlwind as people rush around from one thing to the next? And the biggest question of all, was life really slower back then? Or was it just simply different? 

What do you think? Honestly I would love to know. Are you busy? Or do you agree that it's just how it is now? I reckon it's fair to say that anyone who is working right now knows all about being busy - employers expect a LOT for little in return. There's increasing pressure on people as teams get smaller but workloads get larger, more demanding and everything needs to be done yesterday. I tend to think of myself as being constantly reactive and then times when I can proactively plan ahead and get things done feel like a real win...

But here's my next point. If you're bopping along being all busy, when you actually do stop, have some time to yourself, to refresh, it's truly AMAZING! It feels soooo luxurious, lush and pretty special. Even if it's only thirty minutes on the sofa before bed with my current read, it's flipping lovely and does me the world of good. But would I want to do it all the time? To have hours on end stretch ahead of me with nothing to do? Nahhhh I don't think so! I think I might even be in danger of being a bit bored... 

It's fair to say that I'm probably guilty of taking too much on at once. We both are, me and Dave, but it truly has become kind of what we do, who we are. And I think as stuff around you happens (like big life stuff) it makes me more and more aware that you gotta live this life up right! I want to get to the end and say YASS that was so much fun! I had an absolute blast! If you want to get all deep and meaningful about it, there's a whole eternity awaiting of doing absolutely nothing - give me the busy-relax-busy-relax-busy thing right here, right now!