BUSY IS AS BUSY DOES

Journal of Healing – April 11, 2007

By Mary Koch

You’re probably too busy to read this. I’m almost too busy to write it.

In the 1960s, futurists promised that by the turn of the century, we would be a “leisure society.” Sounded good at the time, but leisure is defined (I remind you because so few of us are acquainted with it) as “freedom provided by the cessation of activities.” Sounds like death!

While we don’t want to be idle, our craving for action, like food, can undo us. The plethora of time management books almost equals the number of diet books.

I didn’t suspect I had a busy-ness addiction until I received an e-mail from a friend. She apologized for not writing sooner but, she said, she was doing what I do every day. Mystified, I asked what she meant. Her two-word reply: “Be busy.”

Why do we – why do I – have to be so doggone busy?

New York Times essayist Alina Tugend noted, “Although those who are overworked and over-whelmed complain ceaselessly, it is often with an undertone of boastfulness; the hidden message is that I’m so busy because I’m so important.”

Eek! Is that me?

* * *

AT THE other end of the spectrum are people who must work to exhaustion to stay alive. Many full-time family caregivers, for example, also have to maintain outside jobs.

In a recent “Take Care!” newsletter published by the National Family Caregivers Association, a caregiver wrote in despair about trying to balance care for a spouse, who had a spinal cord injury, with a job.

Dr. Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist, had this to say about balance:

“ … I think of a ballerina en pointe, poised on the toes of one elegantly extended foot. It’s a stance that takes grace, strength, and nerve. The problem with striking such balances in caregiving is that the family caregiver’s foot too often rests on a slippery sheet of ice and she is periodically buffeted by 50-mile-per-hour gusts. It is not a question of if she is going to topple but when.”

It isn’t so much a matter of striking a balance, the doctor continued, but of being able to pick yourself up from a fall and bracing yourself for the next gust.

* * *

SOME OF US land in the middle of the busy-ness spectrum. There are things we have no choice about: in my case, overseeing care for my husband 24/7 plus working. But extra activities, such as volunteering, are my choice.

I love being able to do all of these, but in moments of self-doubt I wonder if I’m so busy “doing” because I fear simply “being.” My husband, of course, has mastered the difficult art of pure being. Fully paralyzed and unable to speak, he had little choice.

One recent afternoon I decided to just “be” with him. I ignored my ridiculously long to-do list, and sat, for hours, listening along to his current audio book. (I spend time every day reading aloud to him, but that doesn’t count as “being” because it’s another “doing.”) As I sat, I thought of how I could multi-task and do various chores while listening. But I was firm with myself: “Sit still. No guilt.”

It was good, just “being” together. I think I’ll do it again – sometime when I’m not so busy.

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