Busy is a State of Mind

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How often have you thought that there are not enough hours in the day? What if we had another hour and there were 25 hours in a day; would you fill it with work, family commitments, going to the gym?  I have no idea what I would do with my 25^th hour of the day -- probably more the same that I am doing in 24 hours.

We have a new normal we are all trying to embrace: the feeling of suffering from time poverty or being time starved. I recently read an article that talks about how one in five Americans reported feeling "extreme" stress in 2012; in fact, time poverty is now a recognized psychological and social stressor.

We're all in a hurry all the time, or so it seems. We even walk 10 percent faster than just a decade ago. Is being busy, walking faster, and cramming it all into 24 hours taking you from where you are to where you want to go? Does it produce happiness at the end of each day?

Several years ago, I had told my uncle, who was suffering in the early stages of ALS, (Lou Gherig's Disease) that we would stop by his house on our way up to NH. He lived in Massachusetts and we would be driving right by his exit. We got a late start and ran into traffic and so I called him and said that we were going to be late for our arrival in NH. Our four-hour drive had turned into a six-hour stretch. However, truth is that even though we tacked on two extra hours on to our trip -- we were in a hurry to get there. (Albeit to see family and a good reason, but still). We made a plan that we would come back up in two weeks during the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.

As my uncle was in the early stages of ALS, we figured we had time to see him. That was the week of Christmas 2007. We drove back to New York City after the holiday, and made plans to do the drive back up to Massachusetts so we could spend some “quality” time together. I ended up making the trip back up north a week later…he died in his sleep on New Year’s Eve. I never saw him again.

It was a life lesson. How time starved or "busy" was I on that day that we could not have stopped by his house to see him for 20 minutes. Would that short visit have made a difference to our NH arrival? My impression was that we were starving for time, but I was wrong.

Sometimes I actually need to slow down in order to go faster, think clearer and drive my own happiness.

I have eliminated the words “I am busy.”  I have made the time to fit what is important into my life.  I want to see an old friend for coffee; attend my son’s play at school; visit with a former colleague for lunch; see family for milestone events four hours away.  It is up to us (to me) to prioritize what is important. A lot of time, we seem to lose track of that. We need to reclassify what “busy” means, versus what is truly cherished time with the people we love.

Busy is a state of mind.