Busyness. There seems to be merit to the notion that busyness is a good thing, to the extent it that complements the notion that “idle time is the devil’s time”. Perhaps there are other merits, too, to being 'busy' like the accomplishment of things, the production of things, the growth that comes from experiencing different things, from being challenged, from being used up…in good ways.
But lately I have been wondering more about the risks and threats of too much busyness, at least in my own life. There is something about busyness that is self-perpetuating, like a self-made inertia. One, in fact, that seems hard to stop or even steer. It also seems to breed something inside of me that creates distance from myself, from others. A something that feels like a kind of independence, a self-sufficiency of sorts. Busyness calls upon something naturally bent towards achieving efficiencies in life, which on the surface don't necessarily seem like a bad thing…but often seem to mask my attempts to control more and more of life. Where, in fact, have the virtues of efficiency been spawned? I was wondering recently, for example, where notions of efficiency are honored in things like faith, and in the Scriptures. Is it ever even mentioned?
Busyness' off-spring, efficiency, seems to beckon something more deeply in me each time it calls. It seems to try to pack more and more of life into smaller segments of time. And, it ever so subtlety, at least along the way, seems to turn into a requirement for things to work down to the minute, if not the second. Something seems awry under such an approach to life, especially when it sneakily become a quest in life. It isn’t always obvious how it goes about its work, but something is ‘off kilter’. Busyness seems to leave less room for things that don’t comply with the model…of efficiency, of effectiveness. It seems to try to intimidate or overshadow things that don’t fit the mold of getting things done, leaving less and less opportunity to recognize the value of mystery, of waiting, of wondering at things that aren’t obvious in deference to things that are, or appear to be.
I’ve also noticed that it waters in me a root of something that requires something of others that it shouldn’t…the least of which is a kind of expected cooperation with my tightening agenda on things…and the greater of which seems to be a judgment about others that has little room for humility about who they are and that turns them into something of value relative to what I need to get done. Efficiency seems to deny the virture of patience and the God of it, promoting a false sense of value within that is based on a kind of productivity that God doesn’t seem to recognize as very valuable to our need to learn about our dependence (on Him), rather than our independence.
Busyness, at least mine, seems to leave a taste in my mouth, an aroma for others that doesn’t draw together…rather, it seems to create distance in nearly all directions inwardly and outwardly.
I am less and less comfortable with the fruits I see of busyness. I am less and less comfortable with the size I have to remain to be so busy. I want to be smaller, less important; more willing to respond to promptings within and without...than evaluating such opportunities for their impact on what I need to get done.
