Busy. It’s a word I overuse. I’m sure you do too, at least at times.
In the Washington region, busy means that you’re doing something right. You’re running to meetings, jam-packing your schedule, under-sleeping, networking up the wazoo, always on the move.
But busy isn’t a solution and we sure need to stop using it as a crutch.
Google “Busy as an excuse” and a staggering millions of search results come up.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how over-scheduled our lives can be and how damaging it is to social relationships, especially budding romantic ones.
On Tinder, naturally, the guy that I’ve clicked most with so far, who I manage to have a great back-and-forth banter with (at least in an app form) must work 80 hours a week. Each time he suggests a meeting time and place the process is like squeezing in a quick pow-wow during a crowded work conference. “I have an opening right before something I have to get to at 4 on Thursday,” he’ll rattle off.
“Um, I work during the day. You want me to meet you at a coffee shop for a half hour at 3 in the afternoon?”
We carry on like this and ultimately we have yet to meet.
Now, I always leave open the possibility that someone I’ve been introduced to on an app or a website or any other digital vehicle could be full of it. He says doctor. Really it could be a 70-year-old woman surrounded by cats in her basement who’s chatting with me. He could be a “he,” only the facade of being busy is a way of making me think he’s important. Meanwhile he has all the time in the world.
Ultimately, I’m clueless. All I know is being busy has become a wall in the way, and I just want to take our banter offline long enough to see if it has any basis in reality.
It’s not just him. A different man I went on two dates with in February and March just reached out to me again. He had gone radio silent for awhile, apparently because he was busy writing a thesis. Thesis, mind you, is a great word and a great thing to be working on. It suggests that this gent is smart, responsible and doing things with his life. These are definitely things I want. But there’s got to be a balance between being consumed in the busy-ness of business and work and school and making room for relationships.
This past weekend I think I witnessed such a balance. A married couple that I’m friends with met up with me for several hours over breakfast and some hang time outside. The two had a baby less than a year ago yet they’re not trapped inside their house. They take their baby, sometimes they don’t. They spend time as a pair and as friends to others. And both the man and the woman in this great couple are continuing with their jobs—and, as a matter of fact, have each recently experienced promotions and enhancements in their responsibility.
Ambition is certainly part of their personalities, yet it doesn’t rule everything. They’re social and still themselves and accomplish great thing professionally all at once.
Sheryl Sandberg says, as part of her strategy around leaning in, that we have to “ban bossy.” I say that we also ban “busy,” while we’re at it. At least as catchphrase or gut reaction to explain away everything. Ban busy as an excuse that puts ourselves in our own way and treats every part of life like a calendar to be scheduled.
–Dena