On Being Busy

This isn't my writing and I take no credit for it. Rather, the following highlights come from Tim Kreider who pens an online column for the New York Times, and most recently wrote one called "The 'Busy' Trap".

His writing captured EXACTLY how I feel, and it's worth sharing and recognizing in our own lives - Every. Single Day.

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"If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are.

Almost everyone I know is busy.

The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it.

I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.

I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it’s possible I’ll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I’ll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. Life is too short to be busy."

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Of course, this writing also makes me reflect on the Simple Beauties in this world and those Magic Moments, which I've written about before. Hopefully, we can all find them as much as possible.

 Props to Kerri Sparling for posting a link to this column on her Facebook page and alerting me to its awesomeness.