Busy is a very slippery word.
A very dirty and cunning word, indeed.
When you hear it or if it happens to indiscreetly leave your lips, brace yourself, because you’re about to fall into a misty sea of trouble. You’re about to go chin deep into the busy sewer, bubbling and brimming with half-truths, and indelicate lies.
When you are busy, you have allowed yourself to become seductively misdirected. You’re been made a witness to crime. A most underhanded delinquency that steals your day and bargains your life. Misappropriates your time. Offers you the empty illusion of stacking or moving things around, without any meaningful purpose, and in the end signifying nothing.
You’re in the busy creek, and you’ve just dropped your paddle.
No one is busy.
Anyone who says they are, are not.
They probably feel like it. A bit overwhelmed, nervous, anxious, angry, a touch passive aggressive perhaps, but they are never busy.
Never busy.
I didn’t say that people are not hard at work. Deeply engaged in their task. Or engrossed in an important project. I am just pointing out, that the people who truly are, will never utter the word busy.
They are never busy.
They know the cost of hard work.
Real hard work drags you through the underbelly of fear and frustration. Keeps you engaged, concerned, and totally absorbed on the task. Absorbed and focused on meaningful work. That in the end, leads to a dream fulfilled.
Busy work, on the other hand, focuses on itself. On the mere passage of time, the unfairness of life and its demands, and the lack of assistance from those who can lend a hand.
The empty phrase, I’m busy, turns out to be more of a puny yelp and a hollow cry to be left alone, than an indication to the contrary.
The road less travelled is always on the other side of busy.
On the other side of the life.
There, priorities dictate what gets done first, and direct what follows.
Priorities. Not busy work.
This over that.
This particular dinner engagement over that one. A phone conversation with this friend over another. Working on this particular task, instead of working on that one.
Well planned. Thought out and identified.
Priorities.
And no one gets hurt that this or that didn’t get done first, even though, there was an official memo and a long staff meeting about it. Or that this or that idea of theirs, was ignored. Especially when something more important and meaningful rises to the surface.
On the other side, no one is offended at the sudden change in direction. No one feels hurt or throws a tantrum when things don’t go their way, because they understand that it’s all part of the process.
Everything is interconnected. And hearing no, means a yes to something else. Not doing this, gives you the time to focus on that.
On the other side of busy, a lot of things of ostensible importance, don’t really matter. What matters is the trust, hope, and love, you have for one other.
It is easy to say you have faith or that you believe in hope. It’s easy to say, I love you. I trust you. Or, I believe in you.
It’s as easy, as saying, you’re busy. When you’re not.
It’s easy, but not on the other side.
On the other side of busy, real life happens. People actually care for one another. They embrace and care for everything. The universal totality of existence. Absolutely everything that has been gifted the chance to live.
On the other side of busy, lives friendship, commitment, gratitude, abundance, and graciousness.
The grass on the other side is for once greener.
It is happier. More meaningful.
But never busy.
