Mercy me, mercy me it's that busy disease

I saw a dear friend recently.  I asked her how she was doing; she looked up, voice lowered, and whimpered: “I’m so busy… I am so busy… have so much going on.”  As we spoke, she mentioned she worked over 50 hours per week all year and had very little time off.  She spends weekends in the office.  I thought I had a hard time only having 81 days off this year, including weekends and holidays.  She said she has less than 70 days off, including weekends.  We both agreed we looked like hell and went on our way.

Today, I met another friend and asked him how it was going.  He explained his wife had left him and their child.  She left for a co-worker.  He said she sought a divorce, full custody, and a vast spousal support payment.  He said he took a second job to pay lawyers and try to save the little hope.  They had been married for 4 years.  His tone was the same I heard a few days earlier, “I’m just so busy… got so much to do and not enough time or money.”

The tone I hear (and often speak) is exacerbated, tired, and overwhelmed. 

This is a sad state of the adult life.  Then, a co-worker was trying to get another co-worker to get together with the kids for an outing.   They grabbed their phones and scrolled… and scrolled… and scrolled.  They finally screed the kids, who had an hour open in two weeks.  They set the date.  They said it is so hard as the child has swimming, gymnastics, piano, and voice lessons and is so busy.”

I learned long ago that horribly destructive habits start early, really early.  I spend time thinking about myself, wondering how I ended up living like this, why I do this to myself, and why I work until I can’t function, only to sleep and start again.   I forget I am a human being, not a human doing.  g?

I never learned to sit with the people I love so much and have a slow, meaningful conversation about the state of our hearts and souls.  Are these conversations slow to unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?

How have I evolved to create a world around me where I have more and more to do with less time for leisure, reflection, community, and time to just… be?

This common disease I find so many have acquired is simply called “busy” and is spiritually destructive to my health and well-being.  It saps my ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families and keeps me from forming the kind of community and friendship I desperately crave.

Since the 1970s, I have seen many new technological innovations that I thought (or were promised) would make my life easier, faster, and more straightforward.  Yet, I have significantly less “free” or leisurely time today than I did decades ago.

For me, the lines between work and home have become blurred.  I live on my device.  ALL THE FREAKING TIME.  My smartphone (made me dumb) and laptop mean no division between the office and home.

One of my daily struggles is the avalanche of emails.  I recently took 5 days from work to stop the burnout from coming on, and I returned to over 400 emails and 30 voicemails.  Some were repeated with anger for the delay in not responding.  Even when I had an auto-reply saying I was out of the office.   I’ve tried different techniques: only responding in the evenings, not responding over weekends, and asking people to schedule more face-to-face time.  The emails keep on coming in unfathomable volumes.  And people expect a response — right now.  I, too, it turns out… am so busy.

The reality looks very different for others, like my sister.  Working two jobs in low-paying sectors is the only way to keep the family afloat.  They say over 20 percent of children are living in poverty, and too many of our parents are working minimum wage jobs just to put a roof over their heads and something resembling food on the table.  We are all so busy.

So I am worn.  I remember I am still human, not just a machine checking off items from my to-do list.  I retell myself that I am more than just a machine checking off items from my to-do list.  I need a different relationship to work with technology.  I know what I want: a meaningful life, a sense of community, a balanced existence.  It’s not just about “leaning in” or faster iPhones.  I want to be truly human. 

WB Yeats wrote: “It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.”  How exactly am I supposed to examine the dark corners of my soul when I am so busy?  How am I supposed to live the examined life?  I have always been a prisoner of hope, but I wonder if I will have the necessary structural conversation about how to do and live like that.  Somehow, I need a different organizing model in my life, society, family, and community.

But my recently encountered friends and my co-worker’s children have no clue how.  Neither do I…

Carry on, my friends, carry on…