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Saying You Are SO Busy ... That is Boring

2020 COVID has led to discouragement, loneliness, and too busy!

When I was a child, if someone asked "how are you?", I would reply with something like "very good, thanks; how are you doing?" Or if someone asked "what are you doing tonight" I would respond saying you were watching a particular TV show or practice a new tennis swing.

Today the responses are almost always "I am soooo busy" and "I am always just doing OT". Deep inside you may be depressed and lonely but "so busy" has become the "expected" response.

Does that mean we are busier today? Technology connects us. It empowers us with immediate responses. Yet I bet that you have seen an entire day disappear due to the need to reboot your computer, update your phone, work to get a better wi-fi signal, and keep working to find that stray email or app that you know you have! BUT does that really mean we are busier today?

So you end up saying "gosh I was sooo busy" but even you don't know what you ended up so busy with. Yet it seems much more "glam" to say "I was ...well...very busy!"

In the social world - even in our pandemic stay at home and feel scared time - you can't turn up for online events on time - or earlier than everyone else. That must mean that you don't have much of a career or a life! It must be the busy, successful person who texts to say they are running 30 minutes late because they are held up in a board meeting or a business symposium or with a virtual cocktail with their private banker.

How dare you be free and not busy?

Isaiah Hankel's book The Science of Intelligent Achievement explores how to overcome distractions and the over-commitment lifestyle. Feeling rushed and weighed down by other people's expectations is the wrong way to live. You want to feel energized as you complete actions that lead to achievement of your goals and a sense of fulfillment.

No one ever were at their final days before death saying that they wish that they had done more things that really didn't matter. Yet the locked down COVID days have only added to the human need to share "busyness". I guess the person responding with "soooo busy" it telling me that they are fine and that their life is full....and that covid isn't bothering them! In reality, loneliness and isolationism probably plays some if not a large part in their life.

Selectivity is the key to productivity. How do we become selective in leading a good full life with time to stop, reflect, and care about your goals, your sense of fulfillment, and the other folks in your life?

I want to help you stop using the B word! Stay tuned.....and find some mental space that you need especially during these crazy upside down days!