Busy?

Are we really busy? Or are we distracted? Overwhelmed with all of the things that are expected from us? Straight up, burnt out? And more to the point, what can we do about it?

Last night, I had best laid plans to come home, get settled, and get writing for my 500 words and take a moment to meditate and reflect. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I had every intention of sitting down while my kiddo was eating dinner and my partner was otherwise occupied. What my rational brain did not take into account were the plans of other people. The kiddo wanted to play bubbles in the yard and call grandma. The dogs needed attention. Dinner needed cooking. Meltdowns happened when it was time to come back inside after bubbles. Downloading with my partner had to happen. By then, it was bedtime and even that was a challenge with yet another, more massive, meltdown.

It seems with our busy lives that there’s just no break. The days run together and it’s hard to catch your breath. But what if it wasn’t this way? Would we just simply fill our time with more crap to feel like we are productive? I know that I’m often at odds with “free time”. I feel like I’m not “doing” anything and therefore wasting my finite time. However, what are we really doing with a lot of this time? Yesterday, when I could have been writing at work, I was online shopping for some dress clothes and a couple things for the kid. I was also compulsively checking my email for no reason at all. I wasn’t waiting for anything important. Just kept checking, about every 30 minutes. Also, I scrolled facebook like you wouldn’t believe, or would you? Social media, while often a necessary evil to this modern world, is responsible for hours of our lives disappearing in a blink of an eye. How many times have you been mindlessly scrolling to realize that it’s been an hour, or possibly more? I can confess that it happens to me regularly. Looking down at my phone for countless minutes, only to suddenly come back to life with half my day wasted. It’s such a time-suck.

Now, this isn’t to bash on the FB, because that’s certainly easy to do. But rather, it’s to highlight that we need some things to be happy, healthy, truly productive humans. The first being, needing time to decompress. We are so stretched in our daily lives with the pressures from work, home, kids, partners, and much more. There must be a few moments each day (gasp!) where we disconnect with outside forces and focus inward. Next, we need to simplify. If it’s committing to fewer obligations in a day, so be it. We need to accept that we are human beings, and while marvelous creatures, we simply cannot keep going at the pace in which we are. It’s burning everyone out at record speed. This makes us grouchy and short tempered. It makes us unable to make the myriad of decisions we need to, with a clear head. And finally, we need to slow it all down and refocus on what is important. Yes, we all make excuses that if this or that doesn’t get done by whatever time, some consequence is looming. However, I posit this question in all sincerity. What happens to US, to our psyche, our souls, if we no longer take the time to appreciate the world around us and the people, places, animals, etc in it? What kind of life is that? Is it even one worth living?

If we do not have the deep genuine connections with those around us, what is the point? If you read a previous entry of mine, THIS IS YOUR LIFE. This is what we’ve got. We have the chance to make it everything we’ve ever dreamed of, or we can work ourselves into the ground, completely missing the beautiful experiences we could have had. And trust me when I say that I’m not coming at you with this shit from my ivory tower. I’m a working stiff just like everyone else here. I clock my hours and get paid what my employer thinks I’m worth. I’ve got bills and a family that need my attention all the time. I’ve got pets that need feeding and care. I’ve got a car that needs repairs all the freaking time. This is not a judgement. It’s a plea. The collective conscious needs to change from this scarcity mode of operation. We need to find the joy in everyday so that we are not just existing to pay bills. I certainly didn’t come into this life thinking that I was going to work to pay bills and then die. Fuck all that noise. I’m not on this planet to slave away, are you? I’m on this Earth to learn and grow, experience and change. I’m learning this more and more as I get older.

Join the revolution. It’s beautiful here.