Just recently I have been thinking about how many times
people greet me by saying, “How have you been lately? Keeping busy?” Like keeping busy is the goal and when we are
“keeping busy” we automatically have a good, full life.
I am not sure that my goal is to “keep busy.” Busy doing what? Busy building someone else’s dream or
building my own dream? Busy working for
money or working for passion?
I guess I don’t mind being busy when I feel fruitful, when I
feel like my life is making a difference.
If I am busy and my life counts, like really counts, that is okay. But I would rather be not busy at all than
waste my time and my energy on something that is not worthwhile.
I would rather not fill my calendar with social obligations
or with shopping for unnecessary items or working for someone who is more like
a slave driver than a compassionate human being.
When I visit South Africa, I find that the biggest clash of
culture comes from the difference in how we view time. People in South Africa view time very
different than people in America.
In South Africa, they know their neighbors. They actually find time in their schedules to
visit their neighbors and know the names of each and every one of them. They make time night after night to visit
friends, family, and neighbors. In fact,
it is hard to find a South African spending time alone. It just doesn’t happen very often.
It is always a huge transition for me leaving America and
going to South Africa. It is a huge
transition coming back. And I have to
say that I like the transition going better than the transition coming back.
I find it hard to fight against the stream of life in
America that seems to pull you into a flow, into a place of striving and
fighting to achieve and accomplish something huge. And you forget what you are striving for
because you are just too busy to even think.
You are too busy to dream, to imagine, and to plan your life on
purpose.
So life just continues to happen and before you know it,
your kids are high school age and about to graduate. Or you have spent so many years just keeping
busy that all of a sudden you are retiring, or you are sick, or you are not
where you imagined you would be as a young child.
In America, we are addicted to being busy. We need to realize and understand how and why
we are trying to fill emotional or spiritual voids with business and how to
slow down, reflect, process, and heal if we need to. Healing doesn’t come in a to-go box or a
drive-thru window; rather, healing comes when we pursue truth, wholeness,
honesty, and integrity.
The first step to breaking any addiction is to admit that
you are addicted to being busy. The next
step is to surrender, surrender your schedule, your time, and your life to God
so that He can order your steps and plan your schedule. You may find yourself more satisfied and
fruitful in all that you do instead of frazzled, confused, and pulled in so
many directions.
Let’s break the addiction to being busy together and fight
against the cultural norm to define our lives based on busyness.
